ALL TOURS ARE FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED!
PrePayment DOES NOT reserve your seat!
Plan to arrive 15-20 minutes before the tour; groups of 5 or more should plan to arrive at least 30 minutes prior to pick up tickets OR PrePay wristbands.
Pioneer Tunnel is a horizontal drift mine. Its level tunnel runs 1800 feet straight into the side of Mahanoy Mountain. You make the trip in comfort, riding in open mine cars pulled by a battery-operated mine motor. The temperature inside the mine averages 52 degrees, so a sweater or jacket is recommended. The tour lasts about 35 minutes. Deep inside the mine, you will exit your car and follow your mine guide as you are given an explanation of how coal is mined. There are storyboards inside the mine depicting the mining operation.
Your guide will point out the numerous coal seams and describe various configurations of passageways, some cut from solid rock in order to reach the coal. The tour is educational as well as entertaining.
Our tours are NOT fully handicapped accessible, although we do try to accommodate just about everyone.
Please call us at (570) 875-3850 for limitations and considerations before your visit. Tour is appropriate for people of most ages.
No pets are allowed inside the mine.
(BOTH tours include walking short distances on rough and uneven ground; appropriate footwear is recommended.)
ALL TOURS ARE FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED!
PrePayment DOES NOT reserve your seat!
Plan to arrive 15-20 minutes before the tour; groups of 5 or more should plan to arrive at least 30 minutes prior to pick up tickets OR PrePay wristbands.
Travel back through time on an old-time narrow gauge steam locomotive, the Henry Clay. Built in the 1920s, Henry Clay takes you on a scenic three-quarter-mile ride around the side of Mahanoy Mountain to show you another kind of mining called strip mining. You’ll visit the Mammoth Stripping, an area where an unusually thick seam of anthracite known as the Mammoth Vein outcrops to the surface of the earth. Here, in days gone by, monstrous steam shovels ripped out millions of tons of coal from the exposed vein and left a wall of solid rock 150 feet high, extending westward as far as the eye can see.
Much of the coal was pulled out by the narrow-gauge predecessors of our own Henry Clay, a lot of it on the same trackbed. You’ll learn about the Centralia mine fire as you gaze across the valley to where smoke once forced it’s way out of the Earth as it escaped it’s Hell-like bounds.
The entire tour lasts about 30 minutes.
Our tours and grounds are NOT fully handicapped accessible, although we do try to accommodate just about everyone.
Please call us at (570) 875-3850 for limitations and considerations before your visit. Tour is appropriate for people of most ages.
No pets are allowed on the train.
(BOTH tours include walking short distances on rough and uneven ground; appropriate footwear is HIGHLY recommended.)
Food & Fun
In between your tours, get a bite at the Jellybucket Cafe´!
Directly in front of our building, you can enjoy your meal at the Ashland Borough’s higher-up parks, where they have picnic tables and playground equipment.
We proudly serve Hershey’s Ice Cream and make Lokie Wheels for our guests to enjoy for dessert.
Gift Shop
The Pioneer Tunnel, Coal Mine souvenir, and gift shop offer a unique variety of gifts, jewelry, clothing, and collectibles. Many of the souvenirs are handcrafted by local artisans. Unusual items featured are beautiful coal and gem trees along with miniature pewter animals, figurines, and trains which are mounted on pieces of coal, amethyst, pyrite, and agate.
There are also many unique pieces that feature mining scenes and trains which are mounted on “fool’s gold,” amethyst, and geodes. For the rock collectors, we also offer the area’s largest selection of rocks, gems, minerals, and fossils. For the train buff, we have a large assortment of train-related items and souvenirs. Adults and children enjoy everything from railroad hats, lights, and whistles to trains in all shapes and sizes.
A local artisan also creates beautiful trains hand-crafted from wood. There is also a wide variety of books on coal mining and its rich heritage, Centralia, the Mollie Maguires, rocks, and minerals for adults as well as children. Beautiful, framed prints by local artists featuring coal mining scenes are for sale.
Jewelry made with coal, polished rocks, and gems is also very popular. Parents can also buy Christmas stockings filled with lumps of coal for their naughty children. The Pioneer Tunnel gift shop also sells a large variety of top-quality hats, tee-shirts, and sweatshirts featuring their own custom-made logos for children and adults.
One of the most popular items in the gift shop is “coal candy.” This tasty candy is a local specialty, and people come from far and wide to buy it. It is a hard candy that comes in chunks, is black in color, flavored like licorice, and resembles a lump of coal. Children and adults alike enjoy our great selection of nostalgic candy reminiscent of candy found in old-time general stores. Also, popular are old-fashioned “rock candy” sticks, which come in a variety of flavors.
Visitors can also peruse coal mining memorabilia and artifacts on display throughout the gift shop. Because of the thousands of school children who visit Pioneer Tunnel on field trips every year and the many families who bring children, the staff of the Tunnel strives to offer gifts that are not only unique and fun, but also educational and affordable.
We accept Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Discover, and of course Cash
Sorry, but we cannot accept personal checks.
Don't forget to head over to our Admission & Hours page to plan your visit!