The Victoria Tunnel is a
railway tunnel located in
Queensland
Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
. At , the tunnel is the longer of the two oldest railway tunnels in Queensland, the other being known as the 'Six Chain', either because it is long, or is situated entirely on a radius curve, or both. Both are situated on the
Main Line from Brisbane to Toowoomba, being part of the first narrow gauge main line in the world.
The Victoria Tunnel was named in honour of
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
, the reigning Australian monarch at the time of the tunnel's construction.
History
The tunnel (together with 'Six Chain') was built through the
Little Liverpool Range on a section of
narrow gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...
railway from
Grandchester to
Gatton. The railway opened in June 1866, being delayed when the excavation of the tunnel revealed unexpected geological difficulties, requiring the tunnel to be lined with 3 layers of bricks. That resulted in the tunnel having restricted clearances, which limits the loading gauge (size of rolling stock) on this section of the
Queensland Railways network, and the floor of the tunnel was lowered by in 1985 to improve that situation.
Tunnel floor lowering
There are a total of 11 single track tunnels on the line between Ipswich and Toowoomba, all built around the same time in 1865, all with a tight profile that are too small to take ISO shipping containers. It is now proposed to improve the loading gauge of these tunnels by lowering the floors.
See also
*
List of tunnels in Australia
References
External links
Railway Tunnels in Queensland ARHS Qld
Railway tunnels in Queensland
Tunnels completed in 1866
South East Queensland
1866 establishments in Australia
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