Point of Rocks tunnel

Here is another shot of the tunnel. The history behind this tunnel is that when the B&O and the C&O canal reached Point of Rocks at about the same time they both wanted to run their conveyance around the mountain but there was only room for one of them. They both sued each other and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the canal company so the B&O had to blast a tunnel through the Catoctin Mountain outcropping. Later, when the canal went out of business, the railroad built an embankment between the canal bed and the mountain and ran the eastbound traffic around the tunnel so today the westbound traffic goes through the tunnel and the eastbound goes on the river side. In 1985 the Potomac River flooded and the river actually ran through the tunnel.