Triple Crossing in
Richmond, Virginia is believed to be the only place in North America where
three Class I railroads cross at different levels at the same spot.
At the lowest
(ground) level, the original Richmond and York River Railroad was extended
after the American Civil War to connect with the Richmond and Danville
Railroad, later part of the Southern Railway System, currently part of Norfolk
Southern. The line runs east to West Point, Virginia.
The middle level
was the main line of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, now part of CSX
Transportation known as the "S" line, just south of Main Street
Station. It is planned to become part of the Southeast High Speed Rail
Corridor.
At the top level
is a 3-mile long viaduct parallel to the north bank of the James River built by
the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1901 to link the former Richmond and
Allegheny Railroad with C&O's Peninsula Subdivision to Newport News and
export coal piers. The viaduct, now owned by CSX Transportation, provided an
alternate path to the notoriously unstable Church Hill Tunnel which buried a
work train with fatalities on October 2, 1925. A locomotive and ten flat cars
remain entombed with at least one rail worker, killing several others whose
bodies were eventually recovered.
The triple
crossing has been a Richmond attraction for railfans for over 100 years,
although the number of photographic angles decreased in the 1990s due to a new
flood wall.
