BolsoverTunnel
Had a hour to kill up this way so thought Id do a nice solo wander through a railway tunnel... or not
The tunnel was opened by the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (later part of the Great Central Railway and subsequently the LNER) in March 1897. As originally planned, this was a highly ambitious scheme, as its name suggests, but only the central section between Chesterfield Market Place and Lincoln, together with a branch from Langwith Junction to the outskirts of Sheffield, were ever built.
The tunnel hit problems during construction which were never satisfactorily resolved throughout its life. Chief among these was heavy water ingress. This was tapped to supply the nearby town of Bolsover and at 200,000 gallons (909,218 litres) per day was sufficient to supply its needs. The water problem was exacerbated by mining subsidence. Traffic, notably coal, east of Langwith Junction was heavy, but little materialised on the Chesterfield to Langwith section. These three factors, plus an estimated cost of £1 Million (in 1951) and uncosted concerns over the nearby Doe Lea Viaduct made the decision to close the tunnel easy. In its later years so much propping was needed and so much distortion of parts of the walls occurred that the line was singled from Scarcliffe to Bolsover South.
The section between Chesterfield and Langwith Junction (by then renamed Shirebrook North), was closed to passenger traffic by British Railways in December 1951. Bolsover South and Scarcliffe stations were closed completely.
The section from Chesterfield Market Place through Arkwright Town and onto the GC main line remained open to goods traffic until March 1957.
The explore.
Ok Ill start at the beginning, I thought about doing chesterfield tunnel as I only had a few hours before a wild camp in car & day up the peaks on bikes so I dropped @HughieD a mess asking if he knew if it was still accessible & would be worth my time. one of the messages back grabbed my attention "if u want something a bit more challenging, Bolsover looks good, u may need a ladder though!" this was literally a few hours before I headed up but challenge accepted.
I had no idea what to expect really but it started with getting into the cutting, it looked a bit er steep but there was plenty of trees to climb down.
my route down
Once down there it was a fairly easy bit of nettle bashing to take me under the footbridge.
the route ahead
It was rather pretty down there if Im honest & at this stage I was enjoying clambering over stuff & watching the birds however after 50 yds or so things started to get a bit wet & muddy.
I had been warned it was a bit of a swamp but though for some reason I could stay dry, I teetered round the edges as much as possible but was very quickly disappearing over my ankles in stagnant mud.
Needless to say on the way back I realised it was much easier to just wade through.
This place really feels like something from Jurassic park, with water running down the cliffs on either side & roots & god knows what waiting to trip you up underfoot.
the first 50m or so is a hands & knees crawl, up & down, with a fair bit of water coming in through ceiling.
more water pouring in
this view is taken immediately inside entrance where the backfill is strangely missing from a area showing how high up you are.
Bit of fauna caught my eye as I now waded briskly back through the swamp.
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