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Hastings Line Tunnels

JimC

Entry posted by JimC in Tunnels

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Perhaps the most notorious gauging situation on the railways. 


As is well known, part of the Hastings line of the South Eastern Railway was constructed by what one has to say was a fraudulent contractor who built the tunnels without proper lining. This page https://tonbridgecommuters.org.uk/trouble-with-tunnels-the-railway-investment-legacy/ gives a decent overview of the events and subsequent action. Briefly the always impecunious SER, having received quite inadequate compensation awarded, elected to build two extra layers of brick lining inside the inadequate structures, reducing them in gauge by 18 inches, so well below what was planned.  The problem was perhaps exacerbated by a parabolic tunnel profile which narrows all the way up. The sub gauge tunnels caused problems for generations, which has only now been resolved by converting the line to single track through the affected tunnels. Previously the line was worked by special "Restriction 0" stock, only 8ft 3/4 in across the body, whereas other stock was 8ft 6in and 9ft 0in. For more on SR carriage restrictions see this page from the Bluebell Railway. https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/cw/restriction.html. For reference the standard SER loading gauge, one of the smaller ones, was 9ft wide and 13ft 1in tall. There is a little more detail on SR and pre SR gauges on my loading gauge page https://www.devboats.co.uk/gwdrawings/loadinggauges.php.


Curiously perhaps, I've found it difficult to establish exactly what the practical structure gauge is through the tunnels. In Southern Railway days the structure gauge for new double track construction was 26ft 6in. One tunnel on which I have found some good information is the unlikely named Bo Peep tunnel. https://www.bloodandcustard.com/BR-Tunnels-BoPeep.html. This tunnel is at the west end of St Leonards Warrior Square Station. It seems a reasonable guess that this tunnel, still double tracked, was constructed to the original planned dimensions, being 28ft 6in at rail level and about 24ft at carriage window height. The extremely chequered history of this tunnel, which includes a couple of fatalities, is covered on the Blood and Custard page. The tunnel was extensively reconstructed and partially widened in the 1950s, which presumably explains the continued twin tracks. Assuming that 28ft 6in/24ft were indeed the designed dimensions, the narrowed Hastings lines tunnels are presumably down to around 22ft 6in at carriage window height..

A couple more pages on the Hastings Line Tunnels are https://www.kentrail.org.uk/somerhill_tunnel.htm and https://sremg.org.uk/structures/struct_67.html, which include photographs showing the tunnel profile. More information would be very welcome: please comment.

Edited by JimC

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phil-b259
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As regards the tunnels at St Leonard’s - I believe they were actually constructed by the LBSCR (or their nominated contractors) and not the SER!!

 

The chronology is somewhat complicated - but to put things briefly the first proposal for a railway to serve Hastings came from the Brighton company (or at least one of the smaller companies they later took over).


This proposal was for a railway heading straight through Hastings and right through to Ashford as one entity owned and operated by the Brighton company. Naturally the SER objected to this - but the U.K. Government decided that a railway across Romney Marsh, a site they considered the likely landing grounds for any invasion force, was in the national interest so rather than block the deal the Government authorised the line but transferred the portion east of Hastings to the SER.

 

A short while later the SER proposed a line between Tunbridge Wells and Bo-Peep with running powers over the LBSCR into Hastings. As with the situation over at Havant where the LSWR was seen as threatening the LBSCR with the line via Petersfield, the LBSCR reacted angrily to the SERs new venture via Robbertsbridge.

 

Tbe courtss however sided with the SER and ordered the LBSCR to stop interfering with SER traffic though off the top of my head I’m not sure how that affected ownership of the shared section into Hastings.

 

What can be said however is that both the St Leonard’s tunnels were of sufficient size to permit restriction 4 / 9 ft wife stock without serious modification, a very different situation to those via Robbertsbridge.

 

 

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burgundy
17 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

As regards the tunnels at St Leonard’s - I believe they were actually constructed by the LBSCR (or their nominated contractors) and not the SER!!

 

The chronology is somewhat complicated - but to put things briefly the first proposal for a railway to serve Hastings came from the Brighton company (or at least one of the smaller companies they later took over).


This proposal was for a railway heading straight through Hastings and right through to Ashford as one entity owned and operated by the Brighton company. Naturally the SER objected to this - but the U.K. Government decided that a railway across Romney Marsh, a site they considered the likely landing grounds for any invasion force, was in the national interest so rather than block the deal the Government authorised the line but transferred the portion east of Hastings to the SER.

 

A short while later the SER proposed a line between Tunbridge Wells and Bo-Peep with running powers over the LBSCR into Hastings. As with the situation over at Havant where the LSWR was seen as threatening the LBSCR with the line via Petersfield, the LBSCR reacted angrily to the SERs new venture via Robertsbridge.

 

Tbe courtss however sided with the SER and ordered the LBSCR to stop interfering with SER traffic though off the top of my head I’m not sure how that affected ownership of the shared section into Hastings.

 

What can be said however is that both the St Leonard’s tunnels were of sufficient size to permit restriction 4 / 9 ft wife stock without serious modification, a very different situation to those via Robertsbridge.

My understanding is that the LBSC's line ended at St Leonards and access to Hastings was via running powers over the SER, starting at Bo-Peep junction. 

I believe that I have also seen reference to a clash of duckets, of trains travelling through the tunnel at St Leonards, resulting in the operating restriction that only one train should pass through the tunnel at a time.

Best wishes 

Eric 

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Mikkel
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Quote

As is well known, part of the Hastings line of the South Eastern Railway was constructed by what one has to say was a fraudulent contractor who built the tunnels without proper lining. This page https://tonbridgecommuters.org.uk/trouble-with-tunnels-the-railway-investment-legacy/ gives a decent overview of the events and subsequent action. 

 

The photo on that page does speak volumes! 

 

Quote

For reference the standard SER loading gauge, one of the smaller ones, was 9ft wide and 13ft 1in tall. There is a little more detail on SR and pre SR gauges on my loading gauge page https://www.devboats.co.uk/gwdrawings/loadinggauges.php.

 

Thanks for the link to your Loading Gauge page, Jim, I hadn't seen that one before.

 

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JimC
On 08/09/2024 at 07:42, burgundy said:

seen reference to a clash of duckets,

An oddity I've spotted with duckets and gauge is that the official GWR loading gauge at the end of the 19thC was 9ft wide, but GWR 4 wheeled brake coaches might be  9'3.25 over duckets! (see for instance drawings on https://gwrcoaches.org.uk/Vdiags.shtml ) There's a lot about loading and structure gauges I am yet to understand.

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Miss Prism
3 hours ago, JimC said:

the official GWR loading gauge at the end of the 19thC was 9ft wide

 

That seems difficult to believe.

 

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