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The South Yorkshireman - 3/11/19

Discussion in 'What's Going On' started by Big Al, Oct 20, 2019.

  1. Big Al

    Big Al Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator

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    Remaining firmly on thread, can I mention that the shortest tunnel on the Big Railway (probably) may actually be the one that the South Yorkshireman went through. Summit East Tunnel between Littleborough and Walsden is 41 yards long.
     
  2. 1020 Shireman

    1020 Shireman Part of the furniture Friend

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    Nope. We'll beat that on Saturday. Just north of Abergavenny, Pontrilas Tunnel is only 37 yards short.
     
  3. Big Al

    Big Al Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator

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    I'll 'see' your Pontrilas and 'raise' you Mallaig No. 62 - 33 yards - near Glenfinnan. End of thread drift for me.
     
  4. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    Is the difference that a bridge was built specifically to get a road or railway over the railway and a tunnel as a way through higher ground where a cutting is not practicable, a road also going over being coincidental?
     
  5. garth manor

    garth manor Well-Known Member

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    A tunnel is under the ground, the presence of any man made construction on the ground above is irrelevant.
     
  6. Davo

    Davo Well-Known Member

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    Or if there was no way round a steep sided valley and the navvys had no choice but to tunnel under the hill or mountain such as the Diggle and stanedge tunnels what the L.N.W. built, or such as tunnels like Bolsover (now infilled by the coal board) had coal mine workings running under the trackbed and caused subsidence of the internal brick work and as a consequence the dukeries from langwith jct to chesterfield closed in the 1950,s.
     
  7. Steamage

    Steamage Part of the furniture

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    So what about "cut and cover" lines like much of the Circle, District and Metropolitan lines? Are they just very long bridges?
     
  8. Oswald T Wistle

    Oswald T Wistle Well-Known Member Friend

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    I think that they are tunnels, it is only the method of construction that is different from the usual boring method - no jokes about tunnelling being really boring! If they were bridges they would be short but extremely wide.

    Picking up on RalphW's earlier post #104, many year's ago I went to an illustrated talk on the East Lancs Railway given by John Marshall where, in response to a question, he went around the same convolutions about the difference between tunnels and bridges. He went on to cite where Blackburn Rd at Rishton crosses over the line. The line at this point is in a very shallow cutting, the line and road are both straight and meet at a very acute angle. A bridge over the railway would have to be very long (because of the narrow angle). The technology of the day meant that this was impractical/uneconomic. The solution was to build a short tunnel, Rishton Tunnel (68yds) with the road base directly on the tunnel roof. The surrounding land was infilled/raised slightly to cover the tunnel. The road now gently rises from both directions as it passes over the tunnel, there is nothing obvious from the road to show that the railway is there; low stone walls that look like field boundary walls on each side of the road are staggered by about 50yds. Look over the walls and you can't see the tunnel portals. On the train it looks like a tunnel. The tunnel's only purpose is to allow the road and railway to cross; a tunnel cum bridge.
     
  9. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    A 'Brunnel' no could be confused with some guy, a 'Tunbridge', ah I've got it, a 'Tudge'. :)
     
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  10. 30567

    30567 Part of the furniture Friend

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    But if the metric is time rather than distance, Askham Tunnel near Retford is traversed in 1 second ( 57 yards : 125mph).
     

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