Dissapearing tunnel

[Leeds 9er]

I have just stumbled across this thread. It seems there is two separate discussions going on regarding the Waterloo Main colliery railway. It would be better if the moderators could move all the messages regarding the railway in to a new thread. At the moment the messages are split between this thread and another one titled Knostrop & Esholt.

[dogduke]

Phill_d wrote: The Pudsey loop was completed by the G.N.R in 1893 where it diverged from the main Leeds-Bradford line. This outlines the importance of Pudsey's manufacturing & woolen industry- so much so that the G.N.R took a staggering 14yrs to move heaven & earth to reach the town. Huge cuttings & the 616yd long tunnel at Greenside where constructed along the steeply graded climb to the town... along with the largest man made embankment in europe, Smalewell embankement still offers a fantastic view across the Leeds-Bradford border 80-100' high in places. There were 2 stations at Pudsey... Lowtown & Greenside. Today there is only a short section of track still visible. The one great feature that still remains is the deep cutting & retaining wall alongside Station street/Carlisle rd-This soon to be filled in. I worked at Bramley,Stanningley and Greenside in the sixties,they closed basically because very few people used them,they did not take enough in ticket sales to cover their own staff costs.The branch ran from Bramley to Laisterdyke,Bramley signaller worked to stanningley main line and I think to Laisterdyke east via Pudsey,Greenside box was 'switched out' and only opened for the local freight 'trip'.The staff at Greenside were 'Porter/signalman,working on the station and opening the box as required.Philld seems to be the underground man,what about the station subway at Stanningley.????There was a foot path from Richardshaw lane past the antique shop.The subway entrance was about halfway down towards the flat entrance to the bradford(down platform).It was I suppose about 75 yards on a slope to the level where it met the steps from the Bradford pfm,steps up to the leeds pfm and a level exit into town street by the fish shop as I remember.The sign on the Greenside BridgeBRB - British Railways Board-of courseBPL is the engineers line reference,every section has a 3 letter reference,this would be Bramley Pudsey Laisterdyke.the bridges within that section were then numbered sequentially.

[bramley13]

makes you wonder,these victorian tunnels,would have taken ages to plan and build.when finished they must have looked at them,and thought thats a job well done,somthing that would be there forever.then the goverment close the line,cause a load of traffic problems,and use our council tax money to fill them back in.one day in the future,we might not be here,some historian will come across them ,and dig them back out .then there will be a website like this,asking why were they filled in.so why not just leave them as they are,after all they are historic buildings.

[Si]

After exiting Greenside Tunnel at the Smalewell end, stand at the end of the embankment (incidentally, quite a feat of engineering in itself) and look along it. It is not flat, but has a pronounced dip in the middle. Was it built like that, or has there been subsidence over the years? I used to watch the trains crossing it from my bedroom window when I was about six.

[BIG N]

bramley13 wrote: makes you wonder,these victorian tunnels,would have taken ages to plan and build.when finished they must have looked at them,and thought thats a job well done,somthing that would be there forever.then the goverment close the line,cause a load of traffic problems,and use our council tax money to fill them back in.one day in the future,we might not be here,some historian will come across them ,and dig them back out .then there will be a website like this,asking why were they filled in.so why not just leave them as they are,after all they are historic buildings. You are spot on there Bramley13 - a few years ago there was a line reopened somewhere in the Nottinghamshire / Leicestershire area ( cant recall exactly where without trawling through piles of magazines - sorry).One of the structures along this line was a tunnel that had been filled in and both ends had been completley obliterated by landscaping, no trace of the tunnel.They dug it out, cleared all the infill, replaced an air vent on top, laid the track and away they went.A true testiment to victorian engineering indeed.

[tyke bhoy]

There is a tug of war going on over the Woodhead Tunnel at the moment. There is a petition signed by 30+ MP's spearheading a campaign to reopen it as a rail route across the peak district from Sheffield to Manchester. The National Grid who own it want to use it for Electricity infrastructure. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3662494.stmOne wonders, out loud , if it couldn't be used for both.

[bramley13]

i watched that on the news the other day,about the woodhead tunnel, seems some mps do think about things

[edgey2001]

The line in Nottinghamshire that re-opened is called the Robin Hood Line and the tunnel that was re-excavated was called Annesley Tunnel - h**p/myweb.tiscali.co.uk/sherwoodtimes/line.htm(replace ** with tt)

[tyke bhoy]

Edgey,unless it is blatant commercial advertising/spam and is "clean" and relevant, admin here are quite happy for links to be includedhttp://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/sherwoodtimes/line.htmIndeed its better that you don't try to disguise it as unless its part of a URL a colon : followed by a slash / gets converted to a smiley

[edgey2001]

Fair enough, although in the past the links sometimes got taken off for no reason, I'll remember for next time now. cheers