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Report - - Dudley Rail Tunnel, August 2014 | Underground Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Dudley Rail Tunnel, August 2014

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Altair

Poking holes since '84
28DL Full Member
Dudley Rail Tunnel​

Solo wander while I was in Dudley for a few days for work. So after returning to our hotel my colleagues decided to hit the hotel bar/restaurant but being happier underground and with an hour to kill before dinner, I thought I'd check this place out. Definitely one to revisit in the winter when the brambles have died down. Spent so much time hacking my way through the undergrowth, I only had enough time to make it half way before returning to the car. Oh well, perfect excuse to revisit for the through trip!​


History

Dudley Railway Tunnel is a railway tunnel located near to the former Dudley railway station in Dudley, West Midlands, England. It was opened in 1850 to allow the Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton Line between Stourbridge and Wolverhampton to pass for several hundred yards beneath a hilly area of Dudley which would have been difficult if not impossible to have constructed a railway through. At Dudley the OWWR and South Staffordshire Line to Walsall met.

The tunnel was regularly used by passenger trains until 1964, when the town's station closed along with the remaining passenger stations on the line, although goods trains were still allowed to use the line. It finally closed to all trains on 19 March 1993, when the section of railway between Walsall and Brierley Hill was closed after 143 years in use. A cable laying train passed through the tunnel on 2 July 1993 - nearly four months after the line was officially closed.

As of 2014, the tunnel is still closed and steel gates have been placed at both ends. Although there are proposals to reopen the railway line between Wednesbury and Brierley Hill via Dudley as part of an extension to the Midland Metro,[2] these plans have yet to come to fruition, and would not make use of the tunnel.

The re-opening of Dudley tunnel and the railway on which it runs would also make an ideal diversion route for passenger trains if the need arose, although the idea of re-introducing passenger trains on the route (as was proposed back in 1997) seems unlikely to proceed.​



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Thanks for looking :thumb
 

Lenston

Bajo Tierra
Regular User
Nice that mate, dont often see them with two tracks let alone both still in there, nice images :thumb
 

evile

28DL Member
28DL Member
Nice, cant believe i haven't been to see this yet... its like 2 mins away from me. some good shots there.
 

Ojay

Admin
Staff member
Admin
I have a soft spot for old rail tunnels such as this

Nicely captured, the pics are sweet man :thumb
 

Speed

Got Epic Slow?
Regular User
Im surprised much track is left. Every time im down there there's people down there knocking the clips off for scrap!
 

Dieselkid 63

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Doubt the clips would even be worth much as it'd class as heavy melting steel most likely, and you need loads of that before you make a profit. Also, rail is bloody heavy, and getting a vehicle into the tunnel through all that vegetation unnoticed would be near impossible!
 

Altair

Poking holes since '84
28DL Full Member
Thanks for the comments guys, appreciated. Can safely say there was no one there stealing clips, no one else was stupid enough to tackle the undergrowth!
 

tthgrndr

28DL Member
28DL Member
Good to see DRT again!

I've been meaning to head back for quite a while. Maybe in winter :)

P.S. the other entrance is much less brambly!
 

Gary Crutchley

28DL Member
28DL Member
You have some superb images here, well done. I've found the north portal hard to access, did you find a route down to it?
 
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