St. Clair Tunnel Totally Explained

Everything about St Clair Tunnel totally explained

The St. Clair Tunnel is the name for two separate rail tunnels which were built under the St. Clair River between Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan. It was the first full-size subaqueous tunnel built in North America.
   In 1923, the GTR was nationalized by Canada's federal government, which then merged the bankrupt railway into the recently-formed Canadian National Railways. CNR also assumed control of the GTWR and the tunnel company and continued operations much as before.
   The electric-powered locomotives were retired in 1958 and scrapped in 1959 after CNR retired and scrapped its last steam-powered locomotives on trains passing through the tunnel. New diesel-powered locomotives didn't cause the same problems with air quality in this relatively short tunnel.
   After the Second World War, railways in North America started to see the dimensions of freight cars increase. CN (name/acronym change in 1960) was forced to rely upon rail ferries to carry freight cars, such as hicube boxcars, automobile carriers, certain intermodal cars and chemical tankers, which exceeded the limits of the tunnel's dimensions.
   The tunnel was designated a Civil Engineering Landmark by both the Canadian and the American Societies of Civil Engineers (CSCE and ASCE) in 1991.

Second tunnel (1995-present)

By the early 1990s, CN had commissioned engineering studies for a replacement tunnel to be built adjacent to the existing St. Clair River tunnel. In 1992, new CN president Paul Tellier foresaw that CN would increase its traffic in the Toronto-Chicago corridor. The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was implemented in 1989 and discussions for a North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico discussions were underway at that time (NAFTA was implemented in 1994). It was only logical that import/export traffic on CN's corridor would increase dramatically.
In 1993 CN began construction of the newer and larger tunnel. Tellier declared at the ceremonies:

"[the] tunnel will give CN the efficiencies it needs to become a strong competitive force in North American transportation"

This tunnel wasn't hand dug from both ends like the first. A machine called the Excalibore made by the Lovat Tunnel Equipment Inc was used. It started on the Canadian side and made its way to the US.
The tunnel opened later in 1994 whereby freight and passenger trains stopped using the adjacent original tunnel, whose bore was sealed. The new tunnel was dedicated on May 5, 1995 and measures from portal to portal with a bore diameter of 27 feet, 6 inches (8.4 m) with a single standard gauge track. It could accommodate all freight cars currently in service in North America, thus the rail ferries were also retired in 1994 at the time of the tunnel's completion and opening for service.
On November 30, 2004, CN announced that the new St. Clair River tunnel would be named the Paul M. Tellier Tunnel in honour of the company's retired president, Paul Tellier, who foresaw the impact the tunnel would have on CN's eastern freight corridor. A sign now hangs over each tunnel portal with this name.

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