Tuesday 13 July 2010

Oldham Werneth and Central rail tunnels.. JAN 2010

As everybody knew the Oldham loop line was closing for conversion to metrolink, i had my eye on these even before the line closed!

The line itself opened in the 1860s for the lancashire and yorkshire railway. the werneth tunnel and the oldham central tunnel stand between oldham werneth station and oldham mumps station. werneth tunnel measures 471yards and central is 449yards long. the 2 are seperated by a short cutting.

the line closed for conversion to metrolink trams on the 3rd october 2009.

it closed in october, so what took you so long i hear you ask? Well other stuff just kept coming up, and these wernt going anywhere!! Anyhow i got a call off thenewmendoza "fancy doing them tunnels in oldham??" "yea why not" i replied, so off we went!!


Its a pretty un-nerving feeling walking in a railway tunnel with the tracks still in situ, you find yourself constantly checking for the noise of an approaching train, despite the fact that you know none will come!!


These 2 shots (above and below) were taken from inside the short cutting that joins the tunnels together, it was a really quiet and settled place to be despite being just off the town centre in Oldham!!
Internally the tunnels were no different from any other i have seen except to say there are no air vents within due to the short lengths of the tunnels, the curve was also very noticeable on the central tunnel which added to the place i think!!







Thanks goes out to thenewmendoza for a top night.

for the forum based report then visit HERE for the report on 28dayslater

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