Report - Bypass, Bradford - July 09

[concreteJungle]

I've been looking forward to checking out the 'Draining capital of the north', and haven't been disappointed! Headed up to Bradford and met up with toothdoctor. After the usual walk of strange looks we dropped down and made our way to Rainbow junction:

We selected Bypass, a short water slide greeted us almost straight away and hinted this was going to be good. The box section soon opened up into a beast of a 12 ft RCP:

At regular intervals along this were manhole shafts going up a long way:

After a while the pipe shot up another longer water slide, looking back down it:

At the top daylight shone in at a junction were we continued along some box section with very little flow, and upto pandora's.

The infamous slot, when peering though it a light could be seen, which was odd considering it was the only other light we had seen on in the whole system.

Back down the other route lead to Pandora's chamber, the sewer the chamber serviced ran over head and a stoop was required to get to the ladder up. The chamber had everything, cameras, lights, old airhorn, nice! But the bitter twang of fresh could be tasted in every breath and visibility was not good!

Back down to the slide junction and into daylight:

Getting over here was best not done in thigh waders, you can actually see the event horizon where the water flowed in!

A side tunnel lead off to another processing chamber whilst the main route split into 2 box sections and carried on for a while.

We turned back shortly after this point as nothing seemed to be going on and wanted to have a look downstream of rainbow junction, it was a long walk back, I checked with gps when in the open and we were on the other side of the city center than what we started, this system is seriously big.

Downstream macro:

Bradford just keeps on giving, another sidepipe lead to a pretty nasty looking sump:

What a place, the scale was epic and looking forward to checking out the rest of what the city has to offer. Cheers to toothdoctor, quality day! More here

 

[toothdoctor]

Nice one CJ! Here's my contribution:

Bradford. Draining capital of the north, allegedly.

No fucking kidding.

The day was set, and on a day of (thankfully) perfect weather me and ConcreteJungle met in the heart of Bradford. Fences hopped, rockdeath avoided and we arrived at the unassuming entrance to Bypass.

This place is unreal, easily the largest drain I have been in. Just a mass of concrete buried 30m below the surface.

It was slightly unnerving, knowing that this place was built this big for a reason. First up: the huge chamber

Distortion to the max

Following this, every now and then a side passage would appear with another multi level chamber

Eventually the reason for the faint roar in the distance was revealed

and above the slide

Superposery

Next up: Pandora's various boxes

Shortly after entering, we hit the junction and busted out the "classic" shot

Onwards, to Pandora's box! A stoop is followed by a few ladders to choose from- fortunately we chose a pretty clean one. When looking around, I went down one covered in ladytowels, ramjags and who knows what else. Lovely.

It was pretty misty when we got up there, something resembling one of Manchester's fine night time establishments....

This just doesn't show what is going on - the upper platforms overlook a sewer which was flowing very very fast, it is roughly 5m down with no way up except for rope/ladder action. An impressive place. CCTV is mad though, it has to be said.

On the way out a short visit was paid to the "slot" of legend. To those that have penetrated it, give yourselves a pat on the back. We were a bit confused by the light that could be seen after peering through the slot.

Finally, one of the pipe.

Next up: Macro!

Macro is a beast, what we shot here represents only the small section we did. Crossing over the first section, I managed without wader breach. ON the return journey I suffered catastrophic wader breach. Fail.

The pipe on the right lead to some mad concrete construction similar to Pandora's chamber. Probably part of the same sewer, again, the flows were rapid

At the lower end, even more surprises turned up. A double barreled entrance opened up inside to 3 channels, each one 3m across.

CJ in one of the channels

Then, CJ's eagle eyes spotted some brickwork that warranted further investigation

This lead to a concrete "sump" chamber that I have seen in a couple of pictures before. It is a scary place. Amazing reflections in the perfectly still water, though...

Shortly after this, further travel revealed the outfall and we decided our day had come to an end. A trek back to the cars and with an emptying of the waders, we were off home. Bradford, what a place. Definitely will be going back to see the rest of Macro sometime. Cheers, CJ was great fun!

 

[concreteJungle]

Yeah flooding isn't the best, luckely I was in chesties so so ok, even they have a leak though.

The drop chambers were class, never seen anything that big in a drain before, the other one was up near Pandora if I recall. This my pic of the first one, a fisheye would make things so much easier!

 

[toothdoctor]

Mint report and epic pictures. Those shots of Pandora's chamber are mega, never seen it so misty like that before! Yeah, it's a bit of a confusing system, but nice to see the GPT is (semi) traversable. Get back to the rest of Macro and do The Academy to collect the whole set

Cheers dude! It was indeed nuts in Pandora's Chamber. Even bypass was misty as fuck by the time we got back down it.

Definitely have Academy and the rest of Macro on the list.....does that complete the set without donning some cut up bin liners though?

 

[siologen]

Lol, Snappel and I were there just the weekend before last. You can avoid wader breach by climbing up out of the infall pit into a yard surrounded by warehouses. Then its over a 12ft high monarch to get a look at the 1988 dedication plaque for when the tunnel opened for business.