World Trip 2002 - Cincinnati
Day 13
The
obvious reason for visiting Cincinnati was to visit the abandoned subway.
Four disused subway stations and a nice big dual track subway tunnel. How
could you pass that by?
Right up to when I met him I expected Jake to be a lot older than he was. I mean the guy was talking about the engineering history of the tunnels. He was just so knowledgeable. I thought he was in his forties or something. I was really quite surprised when he started mentioning parties and so on. He was younger than me, a college student I think. But he sure knew his stuff.
I met Jake at the bus terminal, when a friend came with him to pick me up. Fireworks were going off in the city and downtown was crowded, I expect because some local sports team had won some local sports event. Jake told me the details, but I forget. I was a bit put out by this party I was taken to, but soon chilled out on the Balcony where Jake told me a bit about Cincinnati's buildings and bridges. There were some really cool looking women at the party, but we left shortly and went to stay with a friend of Jake.
It was cool to stay at this place, it reminded me a lot of the movie American Pie. These were a bunch of college guys living in this place, with the occasional girl staying over. They talked about the party which I'm sure was run by a guy called Cloppert or Clopperts. It was apparently a pretty good party for Cloppert's standards. Plus there were all sorts of people coming and going all the time. It was a pretty happening place.
Day 14
In the morning Jake, his friend and I drove out to the main tunnel and walked down to the entrance. Like several other tunnels I later explored, this one had a couple of bars cut away from the entrance which made access very easy. I was grateful of this as I am not known for my fence climbing abilities.
As we walked into the entrance Jake started to explain a bit about the history of the place, but I think I was more interested in looking around. There was lots of light in the tunnel, thanks to many vents. There was also quite a few pictures, graffiti wise. The tunnels form a pair, both side by side with big easily accessible holes between them. It was very easy to cross between the two tunnels.
As we walked in further I began to pay more attention to Jake, because he really was quite interesting. He explained that before he ever came down the tunnels he had only found a little bit about the tunnels on the Web. Some guy had a web site that said the train stations still had tiles on the wall (untrue), that the curves were too sharp for carriages (also untrue) and that the tunnels were not high enough for trains (very untrue). When he had entered the tunnels himself he began to realise that so few people in Cincinnati really knew much about the tunnels. Even the few that knew Cincinnati had a subway knew where it was. Jake estimated that less than ten percent of the people in Cincinnati had heard of the tunnels and less than one percent knew where they were.
I was amazed. Here I was, a guy all the way from Australia who was about to explore, photograph and video this tunnel system. As far as I know, this is only the third of forth web page about the disused Cincinnati tunnels.
We presently reached the first station, climbed up to explore it and have a look around. It was exciting even though it wasn't much to look at. The access passages were still there, with sealed metal shutters to the ground above. There was the restroom area, and passages to the various entrances.
The next station wasn't a station at all. It was merely a place where a station could have been built, but never was. But the third station, that was great.
The sign said "The World is ending. Please sign in." An obvious reference to the plan for the station to be used as a nuclear shelter. Jake and I both thought the station would be a pretty bad shelter, but better than nothing. This station was really cool. It had a disused booth in the center, possibly a ticket booth? Train controller's booth? There was a waiting room painted in green paint, with some really cool graffiti. Hidden passages lead out to the stair well to the surface. A round emergency survival supplies container remained on the platform. In one room at the end of the station was a 'bunker', really just a waiting room. It was filled with bunk beds ready for the war that never came. The place was very atmospheric. We spent a lot of time exploring the place because it was just so cool.
Finally we walked down the tunnel further to the curve that lead to the last station. That station was the biggest one yet. To get to it we had to cross a sizable puddle, not deep, but long. Jake performed sterling service by deploying a plank found in the tunnel to cross the puddle. There was a big splash as the thing landed. We crossed only to find the puddle was about an inch deep. Still we kept our shoes dry.
The last station was the largest, a four platform affair. Two long side platforms and two shorter quay type platforms. There was also blind tunnels either end of the station to allow a future passing loop to be installed.
From Cincinnati I traveled to Columbus and then State College.
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