After a six-year, $7.2 million renovation, Armstrong Trails has reopened a 107-year-old train tunnel for bicyclists and hikers near Brady’s Bend.
Whether riding or walking, your first inclination may be to shout. Kids — and some adults — often yell to hear their voices reverberate.
Sure, it’s dark in the half-mile, spacious trail tunnel, so users will need a headlamp at least until spring when lighting is added.
The tunnel immediately connects over 100 miles of trail (51 miles with Redbank Valley Trail and 52.5 miles for Armstrong Trails).
After the ceremonial opening last week, the tunnel was open through the weekend. However, it will be closed for minor work until Nov. 22, so check the Armstrong Trails Facebook page and other social media sites to confirm status before visiting.
How to fix an old tunnel
Renovation of the tunnel has been on the drawing board for decades. Armstrong Trails (formerly known as Allegheny Valley Land Trust) bought the tunnel from the Allegheny Valley Railroad in the late 1980s, according to Chris Ziegler, its executive director.
“The tunnel had to wait until the timing was right,” she said.
In the last decade, recreational trails have generated tourism dollars and more development funds for nonprofit trail groups.
Following the opening ceremony of another tunnel rehab, the Climax Tunnel near New Bethlehem in 2018, Ziegler whisked away Cindy Adams Dunn, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, in her Jeep to the Brady Tunnel.
“Visually, it’s easier to sell your project if you can get leadership to the site,” Ziegler said.
Dunn knew about the site because it was on DCNR’s top trail gap list, but she had never seen it.
“It was pretty bad. You could have kayaked through it,” Ziegler said.
Drainage issues above the tunnel regularly flooded it.
Before construction in 2024, Ziegler and consultants devised a plan to stop flooding in the tunnel by redirecting drainage from the hill to the Allegheny River.
Young & Associates of Indiana County served as engineers and designers of the project, with construction by Francis J. Palo Inc. of Clarion County.
The Brady Tunnel was ranked in the state’s top 10 trail links and is a crucial connector for the Erie to Pittsburgh Trail (270 miles) and the PA Wilds Trail (214 miles).
“For us this one is special,” Dunn said during the tunnel reopening ceremony. “We had a big hand in the Great Allegheny Passage and we saw what that was doing for southwestern Pennsylvania.”
Putting the tunnel back in use resurrects a five-mile shortcut that the Pennsylvania Railroad deemed necessary more than a century ago.
Who hasn’t marveled at the curvature of the Allegheny River running almost a full circle at Brady’s Bend?
The sliver of land that prevented the formation of an island, roughly a half-mile wide, is about the same length as the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Brady Tunnel.
The railroad wasn’t enamored with its freight trains traversing the curves of Brady’s Bend. The utility rammed the tunnel through that slender neck of land with rolling hills.
It was economical too, saving miles of line if the railroad had followed the famous curves of Brady’s Bend, according to the Railway Gazette on Sept. 10, 1915.
Economic benefits
The opening of the tunnel is a proof of concept for Ziegler.
“I’ve been preaching the economics of trails: ‘You build it and they will come’ and that is what happened.”
During the bulk of the construction project in 2024, Ziegler met walkers and cyclists on the trail near the tunnel from Canada, Oregon, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and elsewhere.
“The trail segment near East Brady is just breathtaking,” she said. “Who doesn’t want to be there?”
The Allegheny River and old railroad sites already attract tourists, and the tunnel will attract more, she said.
The long trail mileage will provide economic fruits for East Brady and other towns along the trail, according to Dunn, Ziegler and other trail proponents.
“With the 100-mile mark, people make overnight trips and money is spent on food, lodging and retail,” Ziegler said.
Multi-day trips with a destination are bread and butter for cyclists and businesses along the route of the 150-mile Great Allegheny Passage, a recreational trail from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md.
Tourism along the GAP drove over $121 million in economic impact in 2019, according to the nonprofit.
Armstrong Trails and other organizations want Pittsburghers to look north.
“The amount of money tourism brings to communities is outstanding,” said state Rep. Donna Oberlander (R-Armstrong and Clarion counties) at the opening ceremony last week.
With the connection to the other trails providing long distances, Oberlander said, “there’s a desire to connect to something bigger.”
Funding agencies for the tunnel project included DCNR and PennDOT, the Appalachian Regional Commission, Pennsylvania Environmental Council, Erie to Pittsburgh Trail and the PennVEST-non-point source pollution project.
First Published: November 8, 2024, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: November 9, 2024, 1:53 a.m.
