The Cowburn Tunnel is a

railway tunnel Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

at the western end of the Vale of Edale in the

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

Peak District The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It includes the Dark Peak, where moorla ...

of England. The tunnel is long. It is the deepest railway tunnel in England, at 875 feet (267 m).

History

Construction

The

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It ama ...

began work on the Hope Valley line between Sheffield and Manchester in 1888. The tunnel was engineered underneath Colborne, part of a moorland between

Kinder Scout Kinder Scout is a moorland plateau and national nature reserve in the Dark Peak of the Derbyshire Peak District in England. Part of the moor, at above sea level, is the highest point in the Peak District, in Derbyshire and the East Midlands; ...

and

Rushup Edge Rushup Edge is a ridge in the Derbyshire Peak District of England. The ridge's highest point is Lord's Seat at , while Mam Tor lies beyond its eastern end, at the western end of the Great Ridge. Lord's Seat is the site of a round barrow. G ...

. The Midland awarded the tunnel contract to J.P. Edwards of Nottingham. Construction work started in October 1888 when a ventilation shaft was sunk in Cartledge Meadow near Edale. Tunnelling also started at the other end near Chapel-en-le-Frith and the breakthrough between the two sections was made on 18 July 1891. The lining out of the tunnel and laying of the rails was completed by March 1893, when the workmen were dispersed. A single ventilation shaft, accessible via the moorland north-west of

Mam Tor Mam Tor is a hill near Castleton in the High Peak of Derbyshire, England. Its name means "mother hill", so called because frequent landslips on its eastern face have resulted in a multitude of "mini-hills" beneath it. These landslips, which ...

, is deep, making it one of the deepest railway ventilation shafts in the country. The shaft was constructed in 1894 over the course of two years. Men lived on the rough exposed moorlands to dig the shafts without any modern machinery and were lowered into the shaft using a winch mechanism. 102 men worked eight-hour shifts day and night to excavate, mason and brick the shaft. It was eventually completed on 16 March 1896. Currently the shaft remains open, but protected by a large brick enclosure (pictured).

Maintenance

Repairs to the ventilation shaft were carried out in August to September 2021 by

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

, with an investment of around £800,000. The work involved installation of a system of drainage pipes inside the shaft to collect rainwater which seeps through the its brickwork from the soil, which had been cascading onto the railway below. The new system diverts water to drains inside the tunnel itself. To avoid disrupting rail traffic, helicopters were used to airlift equipment to build a temporary platform to lower engineers inside the shaft similarly to the original constructors.

Description

Cowburn Tunnel takes the Hope Valley Line west out of Edale valley, to emerge near Chapel Milton, east of

Chinley railway station Chinley railway station serves the village of Chinley in Derbyshire, England. The station is south east of Manchester Piccadilly, on the Hope Valley Line from Sheffield to Manchester. It is unstaffed and is managed by Northern Trains. Histo ...

. Unusually, the tunnel is not built at a constant gradient: in fact, the summit of the line between Dore and Chinley lies within the tunnel, about a quarter of the way from the eastern end. From the summit, the tunnel falls at 1 in 100 (1%) eastwards and 1 in 150 (0.67%) westwards. Nevertheless, when the headings met, they were no more than out of line in the vertical direction, and met exactly in the horizontal direction. Only one vertical shaft was used. Although the workings were much drier than they had been for

Totley Tunnel Totley Tunnel is a tunnel under Totley Moor, on the Hope Valley line between Totley on the outskirts of Sheffield and Grindleford in Derbyshire, England. Construction Totley Tunnel was constructed by the Midland Railway on its line betwee ...

, on one occasion the headings filled with water to a depth of and work was carried on in a

diving bell A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers from the surface to depth and back in open water, usually for the purpose of performing underwater work. The most common types are the open-bottomed wet bell and the closed bell, which c ...

Gallery

File:Cowburn Tunnel.JPG, The eastern portal, from Barber Booth File:Western portal, Cowburn tunnel.jpg, The western portal, near Malcoff File:Cowburn Tunnel ventilation shaft (geograph 4085785).jpg, Airshaft, Colborne File:EdaleStation6501(edited).JPG, In this picture, taken from Edale station, the eastern portal is seen beyond the departing Manchester-bound train. The route is still semaphore-signalled between Totley Tunnel East and Chinley signal boxes.

References

*{{cite book, last=Joy, first=David, title=A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain, Volume 8: South and West Yorkshire, year=1984, publisher=David & Charles, location=Newton Abbot, isbn=0-946537-11-9, edition=2 Peak District Railway tunnels in England Rail transport in Derbyshire Tunnels in Derbyshire Tunnels completed in 1893 Midland Railway 1893 establishments in England