The Box
I’m reading a book by a guy called Ian Marchant. It’s called Parallel Lines and is about the history of the British railway network: Beeching, Stevenson, Brunel and how the lines were built. Essential reading for commuters.
One of the most famous railway tunnels in Britain, if there can be such a thing as a famous tunnel, is Box Tunnel, which runs into Bath at a gradient of one in 60. There is a section on this in the book, explaining that it was the only way the engineers could get the line down the steep hills into the city. But also…
There are railway men who claim that there are secret tunnels hidden behind steel doors in Box … that hold … steam locomotives, the so-called Strategic Reserve. The argument runs that in time of nuclear war it would be almost impossible to move about the country, and that diesel and electric trains would be immobilised. Steam trains, which need only coal, water and a box of matches to operate would be the best way to transport people and materials. The engines that have been preserved for this purpose wait, painted black and without identification numbers, in a vast underground siding accessed through the Box… There is supposed to be a secret underground city down there, prepared for the government against an all-out thermo-nuclear attack.
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July 11th, 2004 at 9:26 pm
Intruiging and a little exciting, but I just did a quick google on the subject and found an interesting article that suggests steam trains would be an impractical ‘reserve’ - I see the logic. Nonetheless I’m sure there’s a few mothballed here and there.
http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/Oubliette/Practical.html
July 11th, 2004 at 11:49 pm
If you’ve ever travelled to Swindon in the rain the Box tunnel will be famous as the slightest drop of the wet stuff closes it. Not only is the Box tunnel a nightmare but the Box line is a disaster area with shoddy drainage. Brunel designed the Box and it was blown with dynamite rather than dug, you were more likely to die building the tunnel than on the Somme. A day before or after Brunel’s birthday the sun sets and rises directly through the tunnel or so I believe. Not that I’m a geek you understand.
March 8th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
Slightly related, and a really good read is London on London - A subterranean guide, I had to order my copy several years ago, but it’s probably available on Amazon now. Loads of Secret underground tunnels in event of war e.t.c. Also of interest:-
http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/guardian/
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/873564/posts
Damia Mitchell
October 25th, 2007 at 11:04 am
There are several sites dealing with the Box Tunnel steam reserve, and they are obviously spoofs, although things of a secretive nature seem to go on in this area.
Countries which maintained stategic steam reseves have tended to do so quite openly, and in some cases have brought the engines back into use.