Severn Tunnel
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The Severn Tunnel (Welsh: Twnnel Hafren) is a railway tunnel in the United Kingdom, linking the West of England to South Wales under the estuary of the River Severn. It was built by the Great Western Railway between 1873 and 1886, and is 7008 m (4 mi 624 yd) long, and is still the longest mainline railway tunnel within the UK (though the Channel Tunnel is longer). Only 2.25 miles (3.62 km) of the tunnel are actually under the river.
Prior to the building of the tunnel, communications between the Bristol area and South Wales were primarily by boat. With the coming of the railway, services were forced to either take a long detour via Gloucester, or to transfer their passengers and cargo onto a ferry. The GWR proposed to drive a tunnel under "The Shoots", a relatively narrow but unusually deep section of the estuary. This meant steep gradients by railway standards in order to reach the required depth.
Work on the tunnel began in March 1873, and proceeded gradually through the 1870s. The builders' real difficulties began in October 1879, when the workings were inundated on the Welsh side by fresh water from what would come to be known as the "Great Spring". Holding the Great Spring in check required the installation of greatly increased pumping facilities, and a diver had to be sent down a shaft and 300 m along the tunnel heading to close a door in the workings and seal off the waters. Work in the area of the Great Spring was unable to continue until January 1881. Work was later disrupted by further flooding from the Great Spring, a large tidal wave and a breakthrough of the bed of a pool (the "Salmon Pool") on the English side.
The tunnel was completed during 1885 and a goods train passed through it on January 9, 1886, but regular services had to wait until the pumping systems were complete. The tunnel opened to goods trains in September and to passenger traffic in December 1886, nearly 14 years after work had started. Fixed steam engines pumped out the Great Spring and other sources of water until the 1960s, when they were replaced by electrically powered pumps.
The Second Severn Crossing, which passes above the tunnel, crosses over it on a "ground level bridge" on the English side, (near the Salmon Pool), supported in such a way that no load is imposed on the tunnel. The opportunity was taken to renew the concrete cap above the tunnel in the Salmon Pool during bridge-construction.
There is also a second tunnel under the river just upstream near this point, carrying a high-capacity electricity cable (SuperGrid) under the river, and complementing the earlier high-capacity link, which is slung high over the river (just downstream of the first road bridge). Both electricity links were originally commissioned by the CEGB.
References
- The Severn Tunnel: Its Construction and Difficulties (1872-1887) by Thomas A. Walker ISBN 1850260141 (1st edition 1888) reprinted edition 2004, Nonsuch Publishing Ltd, Stroud, England ISBN 1-84588-000-5
External links
- History of the tunnel (http://www.greatwestern.org.uk/severn1.htm) from the Great Western Archive