2020
SO6610 : Bradley Hill tunnel, eastern portal
taken 4 years ago, near to Upper Soudley, Gloucestershire, England
Bradley Hill tunnel, eastern portal
Not an easy one to photograph, this: I had to walk a few hundred yards up a busy main road then wade through waist-deep nettles to get this shot! Bradley Hill tunnel was opened in 1854 when the GWR converted the Bullo Pill tramroad into a real railway. The tramroad had skirted Bradley Hill, on the route now used by the Blakeney - Cinderford road, but the railway burrowed through instead. The tunnel was not popular with steam-era loco crews, not only being on a rising gradient (east to west) of 1 in 46, but also being on a curve which restricted ventilation. Add to that the fact that trains plunged into it only a few hundred yards after exiting the much longer Haie Hill tunnel, and you have a recipe for asphyxiation. See
Link (
Archive Link ) for a fireman's account of travelling through the tunnel on a struggling steam locomotive in 1964.
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