Ever wondered how race cars are tested? Generally, they're tested inside a wind tunnel having a static car (as it is too hard to test them in the real world). Only one long-abandoned old 1800s railway tunnel in Pennsylvania provided the ideal environment to test the high-tech race cars that sit on the cutting edge of technology in the real world.
For years this tunnel, known as the Laurel Hill Tunnel, was treated as key – not the environment Force's Area 51 level top secret – but a secret that soon caught the eye of hikers in the area. There are lots of secret and abandoned tunnels all around the world – and mostly underneath the cities – like Chicago's sealed-up freight tunnels.
A Relic from the Never Completed South Pennsylvania Railroad
A series of tunnels had been built for the South Pennsylvania Railroad within the 19th century however the project was eventually abandoned. Later in the Great Depression, these tunnels were integrated into a brand new Turnpike project in an effort to build a superhighway across Pennsylvania.
- Pennsylvania Turnpike: Became Referred to as “America's first superhighway”
- Open: The Pennsylvania Turnpike Opened in 1940
- The Tunnels: Built For a Never Completed Railroad in The 1880s and 1890s
While the turnpike proved an instant success, through the 1960s its tunnels were becoming bottlenecks and were possibly even dangerous to motorists.
The turnpike's original route was opened during World War Two in October 1940 and used six from the railroad's nine tunnels. A few of the original train tunnels were not used because of structural concerns or being bypassed because of engineering advances because the 1880s. Still, others were later bypassed through re-alignments and subsequently abandoned.
The Laurel Hill Tunnel is really a 4,541-foot-long (1,384 m) tunnel around the Pennsylvania Turnpike. However it was bypassed and abandoned in 1964 and remained largely unused until 2003. And thus Laurel Hill Tunnel lay abandoned for years. During this time it was sporadically for storage and even as a firing range.
- Where To determine: The Western Portal Can Be Seen In the Eastbound Side of The Turnpike – Milepost 99.3
- Length: 4,541 Feet (1,384 meters)
- Abandoned: 1964
Today one can now see the relics of the “ghost railroad” all across the Alleghenies.
Other Abandoned Tunnels:
- Allegheny Mountain Tunnel
- Quemahoning Tunnel
- Negro Mountain Tunnel
- Memorial Tunnel
A Top Secret New Race Testing Life
But then re-construction from the site began in 2003 and rumors about its use started circulating the following year. Some of the stories came from hikers in the area that shed more light on which was going on there. They would report hearing screaming burnouts and deep-tone V8s blasting through their gears.
Unlike the other tunnels (such as the Sideling Hill and Rays Hill tunnels) the Laurel Hill Tunnel is not available to the public which is reported to be routinely patrolled through the police for trespassers.
Today it is now known that the abandoned highway tunnel is being used by Chip Ganassi Racing for high-speed race car aerodynamic testing.
The tunnel has been repaved, equipped with heating and cooling, safety equipment, and data collection systems. The tunnel was even accustomed to develop the G-Force Indycar in 2004.
Racecar Engineering concludes that what's been built is a coastdown tunnel. That's a “tool that mixes the best aspects of real world, straight-line testing and conventional wind tunnels.”
Advantages of utilizing The Laurel Hill Tunnel
The benefit of the tunnel is they can perform limitless straight-line testing in perfect conditions devoid of wind but with controlled temperatures. Plus they can perform this with a full-scale and real car.
- Wind: No Wind or Cross Winds
- Climate: Climate Controlled
The tunnel needed a lot of try to enter into a usable condition. When the racing team found it in 2003 it had been half filled with road-making material along with a complete mess.
The tunnel means the racing team to show new designs around quickly. The tunnel is working the opposite way of conventional wind tunnels in which the air is forced around a static car.
With this controlled stretch of tunnel, they are able to do all of the tests and measurements in a much more real-life setting. They even control environmental surroundings in the tunnel cooling and heating temperatures as desired – plus there are no worries about crosswinds. Climate control means the tunnel is effectively sealed.
