Visited with @Chloe Explores and Zoe.
Thankfully a beautiful day so we didn’t have to slip and slide in mud to get here. Coming from the bridge end was a bit of a mission especially as a lady came out a house near the tunnel to tell us we couldn’t go via her field and to use the public footpath round the back.
This place was rather fabulous, the further end is still in use and a steam train was in the station so we kept well away from there. The rusting rolling stock and tunnel made for a great uninterrupted explore though I think the lady was watching as when we came back a different way and snuck through the paddock (much to the amusement of four blokes building a fence) she was looking out with binoculars following our walk.
ive borrowed some history from here and Google.
History -
This is the very end of a removed section of railway that ran through Cheltenham. It emerges from the tunnel and then becomes the heritage railway at Cheltenham Racecourse, and between the removed line and the station sits an abandoned tunnel and a whole load of rusting rolling stock.
The tunnel was actually built as part of the original Honeybourne line which connected Cheltenham to Honeybourne village in Worcestershire.
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.
As has been often documented, 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. However, British Railways did not start lifting track until 1979
Thankfully a beautiful day so we didn’t have to slip and slide in mud to get here. Coming from the bridge end was a bit of a mission especially as a lady came out a house near the tunnel to tell us we couldn’t go via her field and to use the public footpath round the back.
This place was rather fabulous, the further end is still in use and a steam train was in the station so we kept well away from there. The rusting rolling stock and tunnel made for a great uninterrupted explore though I think the lady was watching as when we came back a different way and snuck through the paddock (much to the amusement of four blokes building a fence) she was looking out with binoculars following our walk.
ive borrowed some history from here and Google.
History -
This is the very end of a removed section of railway that ran through Cheltenham. It emerges from the tunnel and then becomes the heritage railway at Cheltenham Racecourse, and between the removed line and the station sits an abandoned tunnel and a whole load of rusting rolling stock.
The tunnel was actually built as part of the original Honeybourne line which connected Cheltenham to Honeybourne village in Worcestershire.
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.
As has been often documented, 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. However, British Railways did not start lifting track until 1979
