The Summit Tunnel in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 is one of the oldest railway tunnels in the world: it was built between 1838 and 1841 by the Manchester and Leeds Railway

Manchester and Leeds Railway

The Manchester and Leeds Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom which opened in 1839, connecting Manchester with Leeds via the North Midland Railway which it joined at Normanton....

 beneath the Pennines

Pennines

The Pennines are a low-rising mountain range, separating the North West of England from Yorkshire and the North East.Often described as the "backbone of England", they form a more-or-less continuous range stretching from the Peak District in Derbyshire, around the northern and eastern edges of...

. The tunnel is located between Littleborough and Walsden

Walsden

Walsden is a large village in the town of Todmorden in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England, close to the Greater Manchester border...

 (near Todmorden

Todmorden

Todmorden is a market town and civil parish, located 17 miles from Manchester, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, in West Yorkshire, England. It forms part of the Upper Calder Valley and has a total population of 14,941....

) and created a vital gateway between Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 and Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

.

Engineering

The tunnel is just over 1.6 miles (2.6 km) long and carries two standard-gauge

Standard gauge

The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...

 tracks in a single tube, which is shaped like a horseshoe approximately 7.2 m wide and 6.6 m high.

The tunnel was mined by hand through shale, coal and sandstone, then lined with six courses of bricks (using over 23 million bricks in all) to form the horseshoe shape. It was aligned by drilling fourteen vertical shafts to provide survey points on the hillside above: after the tunnel was completed two shafts were closed and the remaining twelve were used as blast relief shafts to vent steam from the locomotives that passed through.

When completed in 1841, it was the longest railway tunnel in the world.

Recent years

Despite its age, the tunnel has been continuously used for passengers and goods since it opened. The tunnel is track circuited with 'reed' type track circuits.

Incidents

The tunnel closed for the first eight months of 1985 following a very serious fire in 1984

Summit tunnel fire

The Summit Tunnel fire occurred on 20 December 1984 on a dangerous goods train passing through the Summit Tunnel on the Greater Manchester/West Yorkshire border, on the rail line between Littleborough and Todmorden, England.-History:...

. The build up of heat in the surrounding ground led to the phenomenon of a 'false spring'. Many plants were seen to be producing flowers and buds as the warm soil triggered a period of new growth. Large portions of the tunnel have been lined with concrete.

An investigation is currently under way into a derailment which occurred after a train struck a block of ice in the tunnel in December 2010. http://www.raib.gov.uk/publications/current_investigations_register/101228_Summit_Tunnel.cfm

Sources

• Duncan, S. D. and Wilson, W., Summit tunnel—post fire remedial works, 5th international symposium (Tunnelling '88), Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, 18–21 April 1988; ISBN 1-870706-01-3

Further reading

• MacDonald, M. The World From Rough Stones (1975, Random House); a novel set during the building of the Summit Tunnel.

External links