On March 5, 1849, the Virginia General Assembly passed an act to incorporate the Blue Ridge Railroad. This railroad was incorporated to construct a rail line over the Blue Ridge Mountains for the Louisa railroad from a point near Blair Park at the eastern base of the mountains to Waynesboro in the Shenandoah Valley via Rockfish Gap. Claudius Crozet was appointed as chief engineer of the Blue Ridge Railroad and developed a plan to cross the mountains using a series of four tunnels. The Greenwood Tunnel was the first tunnel on the eastern approach to the mountains, driven through a small ridge near the village of Greenwood. During the construction of the tunnel, the earth encountered was composed of clays and rotten slate, which created difficulties in maintaining a solid structure and was described by Crozet as "of most unfavorable character for tunneling." Because of this, it was found necessary to line the entire length of the tunnel with a strong arch made of bricks. This arching procedure was hindered, however, by the poor quality of the bricks provided by Joseph Dettor, a local brickmaker. The bricks provided by Dettor were also planned to be used in the next tunnel west of the Greenwood Tunnel, Brookville Tunnel, but the conditions at Brookville were found to necessitate the use of a much stronger and more reliable brick, as the rock and earth was weaker. Because of their low quality, Crozet decided to not use Dettor's bricks in the Brookville Tunnel, but only in the Greenwood Tunnel, where the earth was slightly stronger. The best of the available bricks were chosen to be used in the tunnel, but problems with the quality of the brick still arose later on, when it was found that during freezing and thawing conditions, the arch was weakened by water. Nevertheless, the Greenwood Tunnel was completed and put into use by 1853, with a total cost of construction of $74,400. Although the construction of the Greenwood Tunnel was, as Crozet states, "excessively dangerous," the work was completed without accident. The tunnel continued to be used by the Virginia Central's successor road, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, until it was bypassed by a cut about long and deep in 1944, part of a series of improvements to accommodate increased wartime traffic and the increasing size of rolling stock. Although the tunnel was abandoned, it was left in place beside the new cut and was sealed with concrete, in which state it remains to the present day. es are not original.
