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Montour Trail volunteers got creative to battle an icy tunnel

4 min read

Montour Trail volunteer Bill Capp shows the entrance to the National Tunnel in Cecil Township.

Volunteers with the Montour Trail put their heads together and their hands to work to solve a big problem that has plagued a Cecil tunnel for years. They got creative to tackle the problem of giant icicles that form and threaten the safety of walkers, cyclists and cross-country skiers who use the tunnel even during cold winter months.

When you approach the National Tunnel along the trail in Cecil Township, you’ll hear the sound of water dripping from the roof inside. Rather than signaling some sort of leak or problem, that constant din is music to the ears of volunteers like Bill Capp. He helped devise the plan that helps prevent that water from freezing into giant icicles and layers of ice on the ground.

“The last time we had this all open, the ice was two to three feet thick in April,” Capp says as he points to a large metal door that now encloses one end of the tunnel. Volunteers would grab their ice picks and shovels and chip away at the thick ice. Otherwise, it wouldn’t start melting until May.

The trail runs 67 miles from Coraopolis to Clairton and has three tunnels along the way.

Bill Capp and Peter Merther enter the National Tunnel through the winterized door.

The tunnel was originally built to accommodate railroad traffic back in 1914 and runs 640 feet in length. It stands 21 feet high and used to get caked in ice every winter when temperatures plunged. Capp says, “It’s icicles. You get stalactites and stalagmites, and they grow together.”

He’s one of many volunteers who work countless hours to keep the trail in shape for users year-round. When that thick ice on the roof and ground forced them to close the tunnel for safety, users were not happy. Capp says some folks even went around or moved the barricades meant to keep them out of the tunnel.

That’s when the volunteers got a big idea. “We just came up with the idea that maybe we could keep it like a cave and then maybe that would keep it 45 or 50 degrees all year long,” Capp says. They’d seen similar doors work on tunnels along other trails across the country and decided to give it a try. The first design went up a few years ago and consisted of plywood that keeps out the cold air and a vestibule entrance with a double layer of plastic strips to let in the walkers and cyclists.

Volunteer Pete Merther showed me how the temperature now stays warmer inside the tunnel and how the water stays in liquid form. “Ice buildup would sometimes be up this high,” he says as he raises his hand to his waist. “Like Bill was mentioning earlier, about two feet thick.”

Their brilliant plan worked, and the wonderfully wet results mean there’s no ice now – the temperature remains steady in the 40s inside the tunnel all winter long.

The entrances of the Montour Trail tunnel have been winterized for safety.

The original design required a lot of installation time and hard work since plywood has to be put up and removed each year to prevent it from rotting. Capp laughs when he estimates that he spends enough hours volunteering on the trail for it to be considered a full-time job. So, the crew got to thinking about improving the design, and the next incarnation of the doors was rust-free, rot-free aluminum. The new and improved metal door just went up on one end of the tunnel this fall.

“We have it where the top section is permanent and we’re just able to open the side doors, open the barn doors,” Merther says.

That means much less work for the volunteers who will now be able to move the doors on and off easily thanks to metal hinges. One end of the tunnel is done, with the other end slated to be converted from plywood to aluminum next spring. Capp says the door project will end up costing about $60,000 when it’s all finished, but it’s being funded entirely by donations.

So far, walkers and cyclists along the trail seem to be thrilled with the design and with the volunteers’ ingenuity and hard work. Even when temperatures plummet, you’ll find folks walking and biking. Now, they can pass safely through the National Tunnel, which remains ice-free.

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