- Joined
- Jun 12, 2011
- Messages
- 864
- Reaction score
- 2,093
Tucked away amongst the beautiful Malvern hills i found this...not my usual thing but so glad we had a look,. incredible place..below is some history of the tunnel..visited with my lil explorers armed with wellys torches, and glow sticks and a non member.
The biggest engineering challenge facing those building the Worcester to Hereford railway line was a natural one - the Malvern Hills.
The tunnel under the hills is 1,433m (1,567 yards) long, and had to be dug almost entirely by hand, through some of the hardest rock in the country.
At first progress was relatively easy, with the tunnel advancing by ten feet a week, but once the hard central core of the Malvern Hills was reached, progress slowed to as little as 15cm (six inches) a day.
Water from the many springs poured down on the workers, and a system of pumps had to be devised to stop the springs on the hills running dry.Two ventilation shafts had to be dug through to the tunnel, which was at a maximum depth of 183m (600 feet). The "mountains" got their own back in 1907, when part of the tunnel collapsed, shortly after a goods train had passed through it, blocking the line. By the 1920s it was clear that the narrow old tunnel couldn't cope with pressures put on it by the big new steam trains, and the decision was taken to bore a new, wider, tunnel through the hills, alongside the old one,With the aid of pneumatic tools, the new tunnel was built between 1924 and 1926, with a contract price of £196,080 ( almost £9m in today's money.)
The old tunnel is still there, and during WWII it was used to store munitions.
The tunnel is now home to a colony of rare bats
The biggest engineering challenge facing those building the Worcester to Hereford railway line was a natural one - the Malvern Hills.
The tunnel under the hills is 1,433m (1,567 yards) long, and had to be dug almost entirely by hand, through some of the hardest rock in the country.
At first progress was relatively easy, with the tunnel advancing by ten feet a week, but once the hard central core of the Malvern Hills was reached, progress slowed to as little as 15cm (six inches) a day.
Water from the many springs poured down on the workers, and a system of pumps had to be devised to stop the springs on the hills running dry.Two ventilation shafts had to be dug through to the tunnel, which was at a maximum depth of 183m (600 feet). The "mountains" got their own back in 1907, when part of the tunnel collapsed, shortly after a goods train had passed through it, blocking the line. By the 1920s it was clear that the narrow old tunnel couldn't cope with pressures put on it by the big new steam trains, and the decision was taken to bore a new, wider, tunnel through the hills, alongside the old one,With the aid of pneumatic tools, the new tunnel was built between 1924 and 1926, with a contract price of £196,080 ( almost £9m in today's money.)
The old tunnel is still there, and during WWII it was used to store munitions.
The tunnel is now home to a colony of rare bats
