There is/was a tunnel at the intersection of Cass & Had

[Chris]

The Illinois Terminal RR used to have a tunnel under part of downtown St. Louis and the entrace was at the intersection of Cass and Hadley. I don't know if it's still in use or not or even if it's sealed or not, but I plan to scout it sometime this week. Here's a 'Google Earth' of the entrace:



According to a book of mine, "The Trainwatcher's Guide to St. Louis", the tunnel runs under 12th street and used to go to Illinois Terminal's passenger station. I really don't know where that was. The book refers to the tunnel as the 'Lucas Subway'.

[memory_machine]

That's awesome! Sounds like a pretty interesting book. If you like that, you may also like "The Lost Caves of St. Louis." I recently found it in the "local" section of Barnes and Noble. Plenty of good location info. I'm especially interested in the Lemp/Cherokee cave system.

[White Rabbit]

Oooo, I definitely want details from your scouting. This could be really cool.

[tunajive]

[Chris]

The cave under Benton park can probably be entered by a manhole in front of the bridge thing right in the middle of the park. The ground around the manhole is littered with sunken in squishy soil, telling me there's a cave underneath there.

[memory_machine]

From what I have heard, the cave under Benton park is almost completely flooded. Some group explored it a few years back, but had to wade through waist high water to do so. And that was when the water level was unusually low.

[Chris]

I just got the "Lost Caves of St. Louis" book for Christmas, I had been looking for it for awile.

I have the whole week off this week and plan to scout out the 'subway' entrance and see if I can get into the 'Consumer's Brewery' cave, under the Falstaff brewery near 55 and Gravios.

[Vega]

That "Lost Caves" book is an interesting read. It just sucks that a lot of the caves they talk about have been destroyed. The same goes for the book I'm currently reading, "St. Louis Lost." It talks about tons of really neat looking buildings, but unfortunately they wouldn't be in the book if they hadn't already been demolished.

Let me know if you find that brewery cave. It sounds cool.

[Chris]

You know, some of the people on the St. Louis board need to get together. There's no reason the St. Louis people shouldn't be as active as the Springfeild group. There's SO MUCH to see in St. Louis and there seems to be a lot of people into it. Maybe we should get together for some kind of meet-up this or a coming up weekend.

[tunajive]

If you want to try and put something together Chris just let everyone know the information on where you want to meet etc., and maybe we can get a group together. I'd be down for something like that.


-Matt

[Chris]

I drove by it yesterday just for the heck of it. Parking shouldn't be a problem and it definaty looks abandoned.

Maybe in the next couple of weeks we'll check it out.

[memory_machine]

I happened to be in the area today, so I checked out this "tunnel." I only went about a quarter mile into it, because I didn't feel comfortable, and I don't usually feel uneasy when exploring. There are MANY areas where people are obviously living or have lived recently. They've set up sheets, beds, couches and other found items into little "living rooms" or even building walls for privacy. I was too nervous to go look into any of the area for fear I'd find someone sleeping who wouldn't be too happy that I was checking out his place.

The tunnel is actually open for most of the way on one side. It's obviously not being used anymore, but there are still lights working in the areas where it's completely underground, and even a train engine car at the place where I turned around. The car has a fence around it, and big motion spotlights turned on when I got close so I'm sure they don't want anyone messing with it. I would have went farther, but my friend and I heard voices up ahead, and after everything I'd seen, we thought it'd be better just to call it a day.

If you plan on checking this place out, DO NOT go alone or at night, and bring numchucks or something.

[Chris]

Thanks for checking this out and posting some pics! I think those loading docks are for the Post Dispatch. I know they used to get their paper by rail and that it came in through the tunnel. Did it go any further than the loading docks?

[memory_machine]

Yeah, just past the loading docks it opens up again, and that's where the engine is. That's as far as I went.

[White Rabbit]

Okay, that place is amazing. That's definitely something I have to see.