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Thornton TunnelThe Thornton Tunnel is a freight railway tunnel in Burnaby, British Columbia, running under the Willingdon Heights and Vancouver Heights neighbourhoods.[1] The tunnel is named after Sir Henry Worth Thornton, who was an early president of Canadian National Railway (CN).[2] CN built the tunnel in 1969 to connect the rail-only version of the Second Narrows Bridge,[3] which was built one year earlier, to the main line in Willingdon.[4][2] The tunnel is 3.4 kilometres (2.1 mi) long, and it is a single-track railway.[5] In the middle of the tunnel there is a fake house to cover up a ventilation shaft and fan systems to blend in a residential neighbourhood. It is located on the northeast corner of Frances Street and Ingleton Avenue, in Burnaby.[2][6] The ventilation system previously cleared the exhaust from a passing train after 20 minutes so that the next train would have enough oxygen to safely enter the tunnel. An upgrade project, which would reduce the ventilation delay from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes,[7] was completed in May 2022.[8] The maximum speed limit in the tunnel is 16 kilometres per hour (10 mph).[9] References
49°16′46″N 123°01′06″W / 49.27952°N 123.01843°W
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