December 2024
Visited with @Mr Budge and @stranton, we stopped in here after a 'semi-fail' at another tunnel elsewhere in the city, feeling a lot more confident about this one we quickly found our way down to the western portal of the Waterloo Tunnel. The tunnel's western end has been partially backfilled, raising the floor about halfway up. However, the original track bed quickly returns after the first 100 meters or so. After navigating the shorter of the two tunnels, we emerged into a vast cutting that has sadly become a popular dumping ground for the locals. Carefully picking our way over discarded mattresses and bags of litter, we reached the portal of the Victoria Tunnel, which extends all the way to Edge Hill station. This end was certainly the more picturesque of the two.
History
The Waterloo and Victoria Tunnels are a pair of railway tunnels that were opened in 1849. They connect Pall Mall to Edge Hill railway station, the route consists of two tunnels connected by a short 63-metre section. It essentially forms a single long tunnel stretching from Edge Hill to Liverpool Waterloo Dock, though it has two different names. The tunnels were named differently because, originally, trains in the Victoria Tunnel were pulled by cables, while those in the Waterloo Tunnel were pulled by locomotives. Both tunnels were closed on 19 November 1972.
In May 2007, it was reported that Neil Scales, the chief executive of Merseytravel, had created a report exploring the potential for reusing the Victoria/Waterloo and Wapping tunnels. Merseytravel is keeping the tunnel secure for possible use in the future. In 2016, work started on a new road bridge over Great Howard Street, which goes above the entrance to the tunnel. Although it would have been cheaper to just take down the old bridge and fill in the space, the Department for Transport required that a new bridge be built instead. This project cost £9.7 million and was done to keep the tunnel available for future use.
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Fujifilm X-T2, 10-24mm f4 R OIS WR (Velvia)
