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Report - - Hunting Butts Tunnel - Cheltenham Racecourse - May 2018 | Underground Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Hunting Butts Tunnel - Cheltenham Racecourse - May 2018

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Lenston

Bajo Tierra
Regular User
History (GWSR.COM)

Hunting Butts tunnel often gets overlooked but it is the shorter of the two tunnels on the Honeybourne Line. It has track laid through it and it is used to store rolling stock although the Cheltenham end of the tunnel is fenced off with a robust steel palisade. Hunting Butts tunnel is just 97 yards long and was originally envisaged as a deep cutting. However, this would have severed the gallops then used by the new racecourse so, perhaps with an eye on future revenue afforded by the racecourse the GWR agreed to build the tunnel and it was completed in the Autumn of 1904. Cheltenham Race Course station was completed in 1912; six years after the line had opened throughout.

The Honeybourne Line was effectively closed in 1976 following a freight train derailment on what is now known as 'Chicken Curve' north of Winchcombe, probably because of movement in the embankment. This is a problem that has beset this location since the 1920s and in January 2011 finally collapsed, severing the line. No through trains traversed the route after that date and it was officially closed later November 1976.


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Thanks for looking​
 
Last edited:

Haifisch

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Had no idea this existed! Is this further on towards Swindon village from the Racecourse heritage station?
 
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