http://goo.gl/maps/kOFQ8
I will be short today. Don't have much time to write.
Trip length:
1 day
550 miles
Travel mates:
- Yueying
- Jing
- Andris
- Bence
First visited place: Ashland, PA - Pioneer Tunnel
http://www.pioneertunnel.com/
First we went to the pioneer tunnel shop and I found this. Magnetic stones. I picked up all of it. It was heavy:D
This is outside, it shows how Jing tried to imitate that he is in the train.
And this is how bence did. This train was small, believe me:)
At the sign of Centralia. I will tell you why it is special.
Climbing. Look what happened.
I convinced everybody to climb in to the old coal wagon.
Yes, this is the pizzaplace where we went. I learnt something. I have to take my camera with me all the time. Yueying studies photography and look what happens in this case. You have artistic photos. She took beautifully composed photos of artistic things, thus we missed couple social things:) Here is a Coce, btw:) Lol. Anyway. On this photo imagine a large normal pie and a large sweet pie pizza. Yes, you can have sweet pizza. It was interesting and good, but i couldn't eat it everyday. We had some leftover, and I had them for my dinner.
Here we are going into the tunnel on a small train. This is the only photo while we were sitting on the train.
This is the scheme of the old anthracite mine. It has seven veins. I could tell you the whole mining process and techniques we learnt, but i just dont bother you with this. It was a very hard job. Donkeys were worth more than a life of a miner. True, but sad. Kids were starting working in the mine at the age of 11. Until 1960 animals were not allowed to work in mines and still not today. So it has been illegal all the time. What else was interesting? Why did they use canary? How did they build tunnels? What are the hard logs for? How much you could have earned back at the time? Ins and outs of the coal mining. How has anthracite been formed? Is it the cleanest fossil energy source after natural gas? Etc.....
Coming back up on the surface/
With a miner down there where the tunnel ended.
With our guide. It is a secret, but Bence took a big piece of coal chunk with the following purpose: I will BBQ my fish and deer burger on the best quality anthracite you can have on Planet Earth from Ashland, PA.
And tadammmm, this is Centralia. Nope, we were not crazy just adventurous. We visited one of the top 10 most horrifying places on Earth. Centralia. The place which is on fire for 50+ years. It is a ghost city. The place where Silent Hill the horror movie was filmed in 2006.
Wherever you look at Centralia, you will see smoke coming out from underground.
Mine fire
In 1962, a fire started in a mine beneath the town and ultimately led to the town being abandoned.
| “ | This was a world where no human could live, hotter than the planet Mercury, its atmosphere as poisonous as Saturn's. At the heart of the fire, temperatures easily exceeded 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit [540 degrees Celsius]. Lethal clouds of carbon monoxide and other gases swirled through the rock chambers.[2] — David DeKok, Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986) | ” |
There is some disagreement over the specific event which triggered the fire. David DeKok, after studying available local and state government documents and interviewing former borough council members, argues in Unseen Danger and its successor edition, Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire, that in May 1962, the Centralia Borough Council hired five members of the volunteer fire company to clean up the town landfill, located in an abandoned strip-mine pit next to the Odd Fellows Cemetery. This had been done prior to Memorial Day in previous years, when the landfill was in a different location. On May 27, 1962, the firefighters, as they had in the past, set the dump on fire and let it burn for some time. Unlike in previous years, however, the fire was not fully extinguished. An unsealed opening in the pit allowed the fire to enter the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines beneath Centralia.
However it started, it is agreed that the fire remained burning underground and spread through a hole in the rock pit into the abandoned coal mines beneath Centralia. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, and it continued to burn throughout the 1960s and 1970s. David DeKok began reporting on the mine fire as a reporter for The News-Item in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, beginning in late 1976. Between then and 1986, he wrote just over 500 news stories about the mine fire. Beginning in 1980, adverse health effects were reported by several people due to the byproducts of the fire: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and a lack of healthy oxygen levels.[citation needed]
In 1979, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas-station owner and then mayor, John Coddington, inserted a stick into one of his underground tanks to check the fuel level. When he withdrew it, it seemed hot, so he lowered a thermometer down on a string and was shocked to discover that the temperature of the gasoline in the tank was 172 °F (77.8 °C). Statewide attention to the fire began to increase, culminating in 1981 when a 12-year-old resident named Todd Domboski fell into a sinkhole 4 feet (1.2 m) wide by 150 feet (46 m) deep that suddenly opened beneath his feet in a backyard. His cousin, 14-year-old Eric Wolfgang, in pulling Todd out of the hole, saved Todd's life, as the plume of hot steam billowing from the hole was measured as containing a lethal level of carbon monoxide.[citation needed]
In 1984, the U.S. Congress allocated more than US$42 million for relocation efforts. Most of the residents accepted buyout offers and moved to the nearby communities of Mount Carmel and Ashland. A few families opted to stay despite warnings from Pennsylvania officials.[citation needed]
In 1992, Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey invoked eminent domain on all properties in the borough, condemning all the buildings within. A subsequent legal effort by residents to have the decision reversed failed. In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service revoked Centralia's ZIP code, 17927.[1][6] In 2009, Governor Ed Rendell began the formal eviction of Centralia residents.[7]
The Centralia mine fire extended into the town of Byrnesville, Pennsylvania and caused this town to also be abandoned.[citation needed]
Do you see the smoke?
Bence is standing in a sinkhole. Under ground as fire goes on and burns everything huge holes are created and are waiting to be collapsed. Bence is holding a big branch in case a collapse he can survive.
The horrifying Route 61. On google maps you can find it as destroyed.
Closer
In the scratch
Pretty amaizing
You cannot underestimate the power of nature.
These guys had problems...You dont want to know what they were drawing. Poor fellas.
Zombie Hunters' footprint
Photo taken by us now in 2013
Nothing left.....
Wood Street, the best place to start the discovery
Enjoying the view on minimal budget:) Homeless style
Abandoned...totally destroyed, without future.
On google maps
Just a bit taste of a night in Centralia:)
We checked out the West Point Academy as well.
Under the tank, because I was not supposed to climb on it.
Then we went to two forts:
Between Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton
To the bridge
At Fort Montgomery
Hiking
We arrived. Nobody expected this hiking:)
Walking back to the car
The view on the Hudson river with Fort Clinton on the right.
With Yueying and Jing.
Thanks for the photos Yueying!
:)
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