If you come in to Doe River Gorge from Railroad Grade Road, you can easily walk right past this former east portal of tunnel #5. It’s completely covered over and only the remains of the cut can be seen…look:
The west portal is partially open, but filled with rather murky looking water. Wonder what lives in there? Anyway, that’s my hiking buddy providing scale for this opening:
From this tunnel on, the line went on up to the fabled magnetic iron mines at Cranberry NC and, for a while, on to Boone. That’s another story, told in several locations.
The 4th tunnel heading toward North Carolina in Doe River Gorge is just past a dilapidated deck truss bridge over the Doe River. It’s crossable. Careful, though. The tunnel is centered at36.250708, -82.156534 and it’s filled with water. (read the comment on this)
There are two bridges over the Doe in the Gorge. One still has a truss superstructure, but precious little else and the other is as described above.
Blogging the Railroad Tunnels 