Bypassing Tunnel #3. With a short passenger consist in tow, Virginia & Truckee Locomotive #29 hammers upgrade past the remains of Tunnel #3 and toward the west portal of the still-extant Tunnel #4, just 100 yards ahead. In the 1980s, as the Gray family slowly extended their rebuilt line from Virginia City toward the town of Gold Hill, they encountered Tunnel #3. Having been successful at opening Tunnel #4, just above this location, the Grays tackled the task of rehabilitating #3, but as internal supports were being added, a significant portion of this tunnel collapsed. Fortunately, no one was in the tunnel at the time. The remains of it can be seen as the sunken, snow-covered area just above the two coaches in the photo. Faced with this major challenge, the railroaders elected to bypass #3 by constructing a large, curved fill, starting just past Highway 342 crossing at Gold Hill Station and continuing to the point where the train is shown here. It took 40,000 cubic yards of material to create this fill, much of which was culled from the collapsed tunnel and the hillside around it. The resulting curve is very tight, but it provides modern-day V&T passengers with a beautiful view of the canyon through which the train has just traveled, and the distant mountains behind it. This section of track is one of three deviations that the reconstructed line makes from the original alignment of the V&T Virginia City Branch.
