I just got an update on the status of the Waxahachie Collider tunnel. First, I'll explain what led me to look into it. I'm the program chairman for the Texas Chapter of The Explorers Club. Our next dinner meeting is in Dallas on March 29. Our planned speaker for that night is Roger Moore, a professional photographer who organizes photographic trips to Africa.
See: www.rogermoorephotography.com Since our dinner meeting will be in the evening, I decided to see if we could arrange to also have a midday excursion and go underground in Waxahatchie. I thought that I'd heard that the tunnel of the abandoned Collider had been converted into a commercial mushroom farm. In 1989 construction began on what was planned to be the world's largest particle accelerator, but the U.S. Congress killed the project in 1993. The Collider was to be an oval shaped accelerator 54 miles long, located about 200+ ft underground and surrounded the city of Waxahachie, Texas. Here’s an article about it from less than two years ago, with photo: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=502 So, this week I called the Waxahatchie Chamber of Commerce and asked them if the Collider had been converted into a mushroom farm. They said no, and for information about it I should call their city engineer. I did, and left a message. He returned my call today. Here's a transcript of the voice mail he left me: "Hi Bill, this is Joe White with Ellis County. I'm afraid I've got bad news. The tunnel - 17 miles of it was completed - but when they gave up the project, they sealed the vertical entrances - just filled them full of dirt - or filled them full of rock actually - and it all reverted back to the original landowners. So, even the entrances are gone. So, there's probably 17 miles of tunnel down there in several different sections. But they're full of water. They were never quite completed. And there's no access to them. Actually, it's just a open shaft under who's ever property it is. The county never owned that part of it. The only way to get down to it would be to drill your own shaft, and go down, and it would be full of water. I would have been glad to give you a tour. We did own the buildings, but we've sold them. And they were just big old, huge, huge, government buildings. I'd be glad to, but can't do it." Bill --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
