On October 2, 1925, it was a rainy day in Richmond, Virginia...
A Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O) locomotive #231, operated by engineer, Tom Mason, was headed to Richmond to pass through the Church Hill Tunnel. The tunnel was a small low-traffic route that was getting worked on. It was an attempted to revive the 4,000 feet long Church Hill Tunnel in order to have a direct route for transporting cargo between the port of Richmond and a rail yard.
Like most days, the tunnel was full of hard-working crew working on the tunnel in order to make in larger. Engineer Mason was pulling through ten empty flatcar units for the crew to haul debris and excavated the ground dirt back out of the tunnel. Mason got the locomotive positioned under Richmond’s Broad Street, deep into the underground tunnel, and continued traveling from east to west toward the western opening of the tunnel and stopped, as planned, about 80 feet from the west end of the tunnel. He stopped here so that the workmen could use the flatcars.
Once the flatbeds were full, Mason began to direct the locomotive slowly underground to the western portal of the tunnel. But as the 231 passed beneath 20th Street, a few interior bricks in the tunnel suddenly fell loose. These bricks were from the old part of the tunnel roof, and while most of them didn’t do much damage, others crashed down and broke connections for the underground lighting system. The tunnel was then plunged into darkness – four thousand feet of pitch-black darkness.
The crewmen that were near the east entrance fled toward the east portal and the carpenters who escaped reported later that right after the tunnel lights went out, they felt a sudden eerie gust of wind. Mason’s fireman, Benjamin F. Mosby yelled to Mason, “Watch out, Mason! She’s a-comin’ in!”
But it was too late, as hundred feet of tunnel debris came crashing down upon locomotive #231, it inundates the train and trapping Mason where he stood “at the throttle.”
However, not long after the collapse of the tunnel, a mysterious man-like form came out of the tunnel. Shirtless and covered in blood – with jagged teeth visible, white glowing eyes, and with flesh hanging from its body, this figure, barely recognizable as a human person – raced toward the James River. People tried to chase after the figure, but it quickly took refuge and disappeared into the Hollywood Cemetery. It disappeared at the point where a mausoleum is located on the cemetery grounds.
The creature vanished where the mausoleum is built into the hillside of Hollywood Cemetery. The name displayed in that location is that of W.W. Pool.
Rumors speculate the W.W. Pool that he was the vampire and that he was immortal, because his mausoleum has never showed the date of his birth but his death in 1913. Not only that, but his tomb – incorporating Ancient Egyptian and Masonic designs and even marked with an W insignia that look for all the world like fangs. Above his tomb is a sculpture of images with cats and lambs.
In an recue attempt to find any lingering survivors or recover bodies, C&O dug down from the surface, getting to the train eight days after the collapse. They reached Mason’s cabin – his corpse was found upright in his chair, pinned into place by the engine’s reverse lever. At that point in time, the company chose not to go on with the rescue effort, citing the cost $30,000 dollars and the fact the rescue attempts had triggered more cave-ins. There may well have been more itinerant workers – some have speculated as many as six – trapped in the Church Hill Tunnel as record keeping of such people in those days could be scanty. Whoever was left was unfortunately destined be entombed in there, along with the locomotive and its 10 flatcars. In spring 1926, the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which regulated the state’s railroads, ordered the tunnel’s western end sealed for safety reasons. Among Richmond working men at the time, apparently, a slang term for dying was ‘going to Hollywood’, a reference to the city’s famous necropolis, as the place is rich in history, legends, and its gothic landscape,
As years have gone by many students in the 1950's and 1960's from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) have often visited the Hollywood commentary. Stories circulated of strange occurrences in the cemetery, especially after night-time adventures spent sneaking into the graveyard. At one report a group of students saw a tall mysterious figure next to a tree near W.W. Pool's tomb. Even sometimes reports of satanic cultists have been visiting the graveyard, admiring the creature.
Despite the Church Hill Tunnel closed, whether or not the tunnel is ever opened again, people walking near it have claimed to hear disturbing noises: digging sounds, screams of ‘Get me out! Get me out!’ and even the screech of locomotive wheels...
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