The Blue Ridge Tunnel reopens (November 21, 2020)

CSX donated the original Blue Ridge Tunnel to Nelson County in 2007.

The Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel Foundation, formed in 2012, partnered with Nelson County to restore the tunnel as a public trail. After eight years of fundraising and engineering work, the tunnel reopened to walkers and cyclists on November 21, 2020.

The trail is 2.25 miles, crushed stone, headlamps required, fifty degrees Fahrenheit year-round. The American Society of Civil Engineers had designated the tunnel a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1976, but it had been inaccessible to the public for 76 years.

The reopening, more than a century and a half after Crozet's bores first met in the dark, completed a circle.