Evening all,
Made a visit to East Norton Tunnel, Leicestershire back in February of this year, nice tunnel some interesting things to see and very well hidden from the road and general public...
So the History..East Norton tunnel was one of three tunnels built on the new Great Northern and London North Western Joint Railway (GN&LNW) line in east Leicestershire. The other two being Hose tunnel and Ingarsby tunnel (or Thurnby tunnel). About a mile north of the tunnel would have been East Norton Station. The station was next to what is now the A47. Further north would have been an impressive thirteen arch viaduct that has now been sadly demolished. Southbound trains leaving the tunnel began the long descent into the Welland valley. This descent was once, around 1960, the scene of a runaway freight train which could have caused a serious accident had it not been for an alert signalman at the Welham Junction box who managed to stop a Northampton to Peterborough express on a collision course. Regular passenger services along the route were never well patronised and ceased on 7th December 1953. Goods traffic was more successful, continuing to encounter East Norton Tunnel until the section through it was closed on 4th November 1963. Since then, its northern approach cutting has been backfilled.
So the explore... We arrived in the lay-by on the A47 which is ideally situated where East Norton Station would’ve once been the station house is still there although now a private residence, Once kitted up we headed south into the adjacent fields using track maps to locate the tunnel mouth after navigating some dense woodland we arrived at the northern portal, lots of standing water although not deep makes for some interesting images, of course the old tractor remains inside along with a couple bits of farm equipment at the southern end there are loads of bales of hay which look in decent condition however I suspect it’s just the fact there dry stored as I can’t believe any livestock has been kept inside for sometime perhaps the old dear stubbles in but nothing more, the southern portal is heavily overgrown so made it difficult to capture, anyway I’ll let the photographs explain the rest...
Southern Portal
Inside the southern end looking south....
Piece of farm machinery
Refuge Reflection.
Northern portal looking North.
Northern Portal
I’ll add more pics when I get chance that’s all I had on my iPad currently, hopefully gives a good representation of East Norton Tunnel
Thanks for looking
Made a visit to East Norton Tunnel, Leicestershire back in February of this year, nice tunnel some interesting things to see and very well hidden from the road and general public...
So the History..East Norton tunnel was one of three tunnels built on the new Great Northern and London North Western Joint Railway (GN&LNW) line in east Leicestershire. The other two being Hose tunnel and Ingarsby tunnel (or Thurnby tunnel). About a mile north of the tunnel would have been East Norton Station. The station was next to what is now the A47. Further north would have been an impressive thirteen arch viaduct that has now been sadly demolished. Southbound trains leaving the tunnel began the long descent into the Welland valley. This descent was once, around 1960, the scene of a runaway freight train which could have caused a serious accident had it not been for an alert signalman at the Welham Junction box who managed to stop a Northampton to Peterborough express on a collision course. Regular passenger services along the route were never well patronised and ceased on 7th December 1953. Goods traffic was more successful, continuing to encounter East Norton Tunnel until the section through it was closed on 4th November 1963. Since then, its northern approach cutting has been backfilled.
So the explore... We arrived in the lay-by on the A47 which is ideally situated where East Norton Station would’ve once been the station house is still there although now a private residence, Once kitted up we headed south into the adjacent fields using track maps to locate the tunnel mouth after navigating some dense woodland we arrived at the northern portal, lots of standing water although not deep makes for some interesting images, of course the old tractor remains inside along with a couple bits of farm equipment at the southern end there are loads of bales of hay which look in decent condition however I suspect it’s just the fact there dry stored as I can’t believe any livestock has been kept inside for sometime perhaps the old dear stubbles in but nothing more, the southern portal is heavily overgrown so made it difficult to capture, anyway I’ll let the photographs explain the rest...
Southern Portal
Inside the southern end looking south....
Piece of farm machinery
Refuge Reflection.
Northern portal looking North.
Northern Portal
I’ll add more pics when I get chance that’s all I had on my iPad currently, hopefully gives a good representation of East Norton Tunnel
Thanks for looking
