RECENT COMMENTS
“Church Hill Tunnel , The Story You Have Never Heard”
Kitty Snow (Kitty Snow’s “Up & Down Church Hill”) shares a great story about working with her grandfather’s photographs:
Richard Lee Bland was at the Church Hill Tunnel collapse 75th anniversary commemoration when he noticed a man showing people a photograph of the Tunnel before it collapsed. He approached the man and asked if he could take the photo to VCU Libraries to be scanned. Mind you, this was a historic photograph and Richard Lee Bland a complete stranger but the owner of the picture immediately handed it over.
Richard took it to VCU and shared the image, then contacted the owner to return it. As Richard Lee described it, he drove “all the way to Moseley, Virginia” and by this time, I knew exactly who “the man” was. It was my father, Howard Lynch, who gave a stranger a precious piece of Richmond history and trusted that it would be returned to him. His trust was well-placed in Richard Lee Bland.
The J.O.B., a local Richmond band, composed & recorded a concept album of Americana style rock with the songs telling the story of Locomotive 231 from various perspectives. The song “1925” is an anthem to the time. Check it out at http://thejoband.bandcamp.com/album/231-two-thirty-one
My singing partner Russell Lawson wrote Church Hill Tunnel a few years ago and won a songwriting award for the lyrics. It will be coming out at the end of Dec on our CD called American Sampler. I can post the sound files shortly.
I remember playing in the tunnel in 1973