please empty your brain below
a) not how you’d have done it
b) may contain errors

diamond geezer | Homepage | 28.01.22 - 7:00 a.m. | #

Nice not to be kept in the dark about these facts.

Waterhouse | 28.01.22 - 7:02 a.m. | #

This post is boring.

martin | 28.01.22 - 7:28 a.m. | #

I don’t think we’ll ever be able to make up our minds whether the Lizzie Line is rail or tube. It will be interesting to see how the general public treat it.

Dan | 28.01.22 - 7:34 a.m. | #

One I travel through quite often slots in at number 12 - Blackheath Tunnel between Blackheath and Charlton, 1.54km (1849)

dg writes: b) added, thanks.

Chris | 28.01.22 - 7:37 a.m. | #

Under section 'b', the Marylebone - Finchley Road tunnel (10) has an open air section where it crosses over the WCML.

Still Anon | 28.01.22 - 7:51 a.m. | #

I'm really struck that (if I'm reading this right) only one of these is an under-Thames tunnel. I would have guessed there'd be more in the top 50

James | 28.01.22 - 7:59 a.m. | #

There are two listed under the Thames, Numbers 6 and 27. HS1 is not included as it's outside the GLA boundary. All the other sub-Thames railway tunnels rest are DLR or London Underground.

It would appear that "does not include Tube Tunnels" actually means "National Rail only" as the DLR and Tramlink are also not included, despite having some quite long tunnels.

Many of the tunnels listed are "tube" tunnels but not part of "the Tube", although six of them (Moorgate, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Wapping, Rotherhithe and the original Thames Tunnel) used to be part of the Tube network.

Timbo | 28.01.22 - 8:13 a.m. | #

A number of the "tunnels" listed on the Circle/District/Metropolitan are really cut-and-cover trenches. The HiSpeed out of St Pancras only has the merest glimpse of the open air at Stratford Intl so is almost a 17.5km tunnel

Fascinating stuff, as usual.

Rob Gullen | 28.01.22 - 8:33 a.m. | #

I just moved into a flat in a development in Forest Gate. Within the gates of the complex is a ventilation and emergency access shaft for the HS1 tunnel.

It was a bit of nightmare moving my belongings in, as the gates have to be kept clear at all times in case of an emergency on HS1.

The shaft is also the former location of a venue that Jimi Hendrix played.

Charlie | 28.01.22 - 8:49 a.m. | #

There are some longish tunnels at Heathrow on the Express line unless they are outside the London boundary.

John | 28.01.22 - 8:58 a.m. | #

First, it's very pleasing that 50 seems to be the transition from >200m to <200m.

Second, re a) - makes me think it's difficult to distinguish the exact boundary between "tunnel" and "covered trench" - since HS1 is counted as two separate tunnels split by Stratford International, but Crossrail isn't split by Canary Wharf. Both were "dig a big rectangular hole in the ground, tunnel into one end of it and out the other" style things, but one happened to have a roof laid over it and the other didn't - which is pretty incidental to the overall structure, but key to the tunnel / not a tunnel label. But if you go down that road then eg various bits of deep bored tunnels saw the sky at some point during construction, eg where TBMs were launched from intermediate shafts as I think was the case for some of the tideway tunnels, so it's difficult to draw a line. Also for eg tunnels through mountains, which might have lateral passages to the outside, as opposed to something which is mostly a rockfall/avalanche cover with columns supporting it, with a substantial middle ground between the two that evades strict classification. I guess the moral is not to get too hung up on labels and accept there are usually edge cases.

Will | 28.01.22 - 9:03 a.m. | #

At least one of them (no 50) is a covered way not a tunnel.

Pedantic of Purley | 28.01.22 - 9:05 a.m. | #

Stratford Intl has fresh air over the track, Canary Wharf does not.

scrumpy | 28.01.22 - 9:10 a.m. | #

Does the Post Office Railway count as a tube?

Geo_rich | 28.01.22 - 9:15 a.m. | #

A traditionalist would say that a tunnel ought to be bored through the ground, rather than a covered trench, but in the case of number 3 the tunnel is suspended in the air where it crosses the ECML at Belle Isle, which gives it bridge characteristics.

Still Anon | 28.01.22 - 9:34 a.m. | #

No.29: There is only a very short tunnel underneath the dock. From City Airport down the length of Factory Road towards North Woolwich, is open.

Phil | 28.01.22 - 9:40 a.m. | #

Thames Tunnel became a rail tunnel in 1869.

Actually, as the first underwater tunnel in the world, it still being in London's top 30 after more than a century and a half is quite impressive.

Patrickov | 28.01.22 - 9:41 a.m. | #

This puts into perspective the tunnel of potentially 12km (a cursory Google search figure) that the Government has refused to fund to bring the HS2 into central Manchester

James | 28.01.22 - 10:03 a.m. | #

National Rail services still use the 283 metre tunnel between East Putney and Southfields on the District Line. Not just empty stock workings. A number of services are diverted that way every week so SWR drivers know the alternative Wimbledon - Clapham Junction route in an emergency. The 04.55 from Basingstoke went that way this morning. I would suggest that kicks the Earls Court covered way off the list.

ap | 28.01.22 - 10:11 a.m. | #

Where are the HS2 tunnels going to go on this?

David | 28.01.22 - 11:11 a.m. | #

Dan - it’s not the Tiube. If it were part of the Underground, then iTfL would have given it the blue and red roundel that the other underground lines use, but it doesn’t. It has its own identity with a purple roundel. It’s not a Tube line.

Geofftech | 28.01.22 - 11:20 a.m. | #

Does the DLR count? Tunnel between Woolwich Arsenal and King George 5th is almost 2 miles

Rachel | 28.01.22 - 12:20 p.m. | #

At 900m, how about the line from Chalk Farm to just short of Euston that goes under Camden Lock rather than over the bridge over the canal?

dg writes: closed.

MartinL | 28.01.22 - 1:38 p.m. | #

What about Snow Hill Tunnel on Thameslink?

dg writes: 168m, so outside the Top 50.

Graeme | 28.01.22 - 9:12 p.m. | #

Still Anon - Trains between Marylebone and Finchley Road do indeed pop out briefly into the daylight to cross the West Coast Main Line. This counts as two tunnels, not a single tunnel with a gap. The longer one (St Johns Wood Tunnel) is at No 10 and the shorter one (Hampstead Tunnel) is at No 25.

Timbo | 28.01.22 - 10:59 p.m. | #











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