Summit tunnel

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Summit tunnel
Summit tunnel
Southern tunnel portal, October 2004
use Railway tunnel
traffic connection Leeds - Manchester Victoria railway line
length 2600 m
Number of tubes 1
construction
start of building 1838
completion 1841
business
operator Network Rail
release 1841, 1985
closure 1984/1985
location
Summit Tunnel (England)
Red pog.svg
Red pog.svg
Coordinates
Southern portal 53 ° 39 ′ 38 "  N , 2 ° 4 ′ 59"  W.
Northern portal 53 ° 41 ′ 2 "  N , 2 ° 5 ′ 31"  W.

The Summit Tunnel was built by the Manchester and Leeds Railway from 1838 to 1841 , making it one of the oldest rail tunnels in the world. It crosses under the Pennines between Littleborough and Walsden . The double- track Leeds-Manchester Victoria line runs through it and is used by the Calder Valley Line's trains.

Data

One of the air shafts, March 2008

Its length is just over 1.6 miles (2.6 km). When it was completed it was the longest railway tunnel in the world.

The cross-section of the single tunnel tube is horseshoe-shaped with a height of 21.6 ft (6.6 m) and a width of 23.6 ft (7.2 m). It was mined by hand through slate , hard coal and sandstone and lined with a six- layer brick layer . 14 auxiliary shafts were used for alignment, two of which were closed after the tunnel was opened. The rest are used for ventilation.

For track vacancy detection, the tunnel is equipped with track circuits of the type Ebi Track 400.

history

The Manchester and Leeds Railway went on in the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway . After the major restructuring of the British railways in 1921, the tunnel was operated by the London and North Western Railway , after the nationalization of the railways by British Rail .

Accidents

Northern tunnel portal on August 17, 1985, two days before reopening, when the tunnel was open to public inspection.
  • The route was initially operated without a route block , the trains ran at intervals. This meant that after a train left a station on the route, the next one was allowed to follow it after a set time. If a train got stuck, someone had to be sent towards the next train to signal that the line was still occupied. On the evening of August 19, 1855, an overly long, heavy excursion train had to struggle with the slope up to the tunnel and came to a halt 400 meters after passing the entrance in the tunnel because the steam locomotive no longer developed enough steam. The brakeman on the last wagon knew that a freight train was following. So he dismounted and ran towards the next train, but did not get far because of poor visibility and the difficulty of moving on the track bed. He placed bang capsules on the rails at intervals of 50 m and 100 m . But that was not enough to stop the freight train that hit the stationary passenger train. Eight people were injured in the accident .
  • Other accidents, about which nothing is known, occurred on September 20, 1884 and August 29, 1899.
  • Early in the morning on February 6, 1922, a freight train in the tunnel split when a coupling broke. The following passenger train from Manchester Victoria Station to Normanton , which only carried five passengers , hit the broken-down part of the train. Seven people were injured, four passengers and three railway employees.
  • On the morning of December 20, 1984, a freight train consisting of tank cars with petrol derailed in the tunnel as a result of a defective axle bearing after a hot runner . Leaking gasoline ignited. The locomotive and the first three wagons could still be driven out of the tunnel. When the pressure rose, the safety valves on the other wagons opened, and their cargo also caught fire. Lack of oxygen caused hot vapors to rise from the air ducts and ignite in the air. The fire burned for three days and could only be contained by introducing extinguishing foam into the air shafts. Nobody got hurt. Only relatively minor damage was caused to the tunnel lining. Repairs were mainly necessary below the 8th and 9th air shaft, these shafts were closed. About half a mile (800 m) of track had to be replaced. Parts of the tunnel were lined with concrete. The tunnel was reopened on August 19, 1985, shortly before that there was a unique opportunity to inspect it.
  • Another rear-end collision occurred in the tunnel on May 20, 1990.
  • On December 28, 2010, a passenger train from Manchester to Leeds derailed due to ice that had formed in the air shafts in unusually cold weather and then fell onto the tracks. There were no injuries.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Parliamentary Gazeteer of England and Wales , vol. 3, p. 20. Edinburgh: A. Fullarton & Co., 1851
  2. ^ Railways Archive - Accidents Archive: key data of the accident ; Extract from the accident report .
  3. ^ Railways Archive - Accidents Archive .
  4. ^ Railways Archive - Accidents Archive .
  5. ↑ Summit Tunnel Fire Thursday, December 20, 1984 ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed on July 21, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.firewestyorkshire.com
  6. ^ Railways Archive - Accidents Archive: key data of the accident ; Extract from the accident report .
  7. ^ Duncan, SD, Wilson, W., Summit tunnel-post fire remedial works, 5th international symposium (Tunneling '88), Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, April 18-21, 1988; ISBN 1-870706-01-3
  8. ↑ HMRI Report on Summit Tunnel Derailment & Fire , Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1986
  9. ^ Railways Archive - Accidents Archive .
  10. ↑ Derailment in Summit tunnel, near Todmorden, West Yorkshire , Raib 2012
  11. ^ Railways Archive - Accidents Archive .