Great video Steve, I enjoy hearing the wonderment in your voice when you're looking at these things. I've always been impressed by the way our Victorian engineers managed to build our infrastructure almost entirely by hand. Today even with the use of CAD they can't match the ability of those old timers. Like the Tyneside Metro extension to Newcastle Airport where the drains installed weren't large enough to cope with the heavy rain, leaving the station flooded with a train at the platform full of water about a foot deep. The old timers would have had local knowledge enough to know how the beck would rise in a heavy storm and provided a suitable drain! I don't know the embankment you showed but it's really huge by the looks of it and the culvert is a magnificent piece of work, as good today as the day they built it. A shame that it's yet another railway which cost a lot of cash and a lot of effort to build for the benefit of future generations and we as a nation have wasted their work and squandered the future. Keep up the great videos Steve, I think a lot of people are enjoying them.
Hi Rod, thank you buddy! I used to think I was OTT, but ya know what? I’m just being me, I love it, it’s as simple as that, so that’s the approach I go with now. I’d never heard of the Tyneside metro extension flooding. But, as you know, it probably wouldn’t have happened 200 years ago! Cheers buddy
@LeiceExplore I left that area (and the UK for that matter) in 1980... I was in my early twenties. Back, then I don't think the outdoors was on the list of my priorities. I was more into music and "Disco"... different times and mindset.
I guess they built a huge embankment instead of the more usual viaduct to dispose of the spoil from the tunnel. The early excavators would only deal soft materials - sand, gravel, clay etc. The rocky approach cuttings would have been blasted out first though excavators could have been used to load the wagons. Great video. I used to live in that area & explored around there.
Cheers Alan. Yes, certainly mate, the early diggers I can easily imagine were no good in heavy digging conditions, although back then, they’d have been seen as extraordinary pieces of kit, when you look at old photos, they do look a bit flimsy it has to be said. But from those early excavators, in 2024 we now have evolved to the machines we have now.
@@LeiceExplore There's some great pictures of them in "The Making of a Railway" by L T C Rolt about the building of the Great Central London Extension. They really speed up progress in the soft geological formations in the Midlands & South.
Bloody love this video Steve on the engineering is perfect. They never had any digital pissing levels. No laser guided rulers. It blows my mind like you said engineering geniuses.
Thank you mate! I’d wanted to see this brute of an embankment for a long time, but whilst editing, thought it maybe a bit boring for folks, but obviously not, because you like it! Cheers buddy.
Great culvert. Whoever installed that later concrete conduit obviously had faith in the original construction. It's great the way you paint the picture of the embankment under construction, people had more about them back then. Thanks Steves
It’s unbelievable. It’s not that long, but the height is something else. Now taken over by nature. The culvert is something else to, and still doing what it was built to do.
That was a great post love to have been there with you, the culvert would have been built over a wooden frame, like viaduct arches, then removed, then the embankment soil added to the finished shape. Have you looked at lidar images, there are a few available, they will give a better view of the hugeness of the embankment as it omits the vegetation, I think the side by side Scottish maps have this option. Great stuff you are doing, 👍
Thank you Simon! Yes buddy, an awful lot of joinery went on, on these railways with all the arches that were built. I actually looked at it on LIDAR a long time ago, but never thought to add to the video! Thanks for watching.
Think that the first mechanical excavators were trialled on the Northern end of the Settle and Carlisle Line in the mid 1870's. They were not a great success but obviously improved with time.
@@LeiceExplore If I can remember correctly it was on the most northerly contract. I think it's explained in the brilliant book, North of Leeds by P E Baughan.
Better than the bloody football 👍👌
Bless ya! Thank you very much.
Great video Steve, I enjoy hearing the wonderment in your voice when you're looking at these things. I've always been impressed by the way our Victorian engineers managed to build our infrastructure almost entirely by hand. Today even with the use of CAD they can't match the ability of those old timers. Like the Tyneside Metro extension to Newcastle Airport where the drains installed weren't large enough to cope with the heavy rain, leaving the station flooded with a train at the platform full of water about a foot deep. The old timers would have had local knowledge enough to know how the beck would rise in a heavy storm and provided a suitable drain!
I don't know the embankment you showed but it's really huge by the looks of it and the culvert is a magnificent piece of work, as good today as the day they built it. A shame that it's yet another railway which cost a lot of cash and a lot of effort to build for the benefit of future generations and we as a nation have wasted their work and squandered the future.
Keep up the great videos Steve, I think a lot of people are enjoying them.
Hi Rod, thank you buddy! I used to think I was OTT, but ya know what? I’m just being me, I love it, it’s as simple as that, so that’s the approach I go with now. I’d never heard of the Tyneside metro extension flooding. But, as you know, it probably wouldn’t have happened 200 years ago! Cheers buddy
Great video... my old stomping ground, Pudsey... never even knew this existed.
You certainly know your history. Enjoyed the narration.
Thank you very much. I’m surprised you never seen it with how big it is. It’s summat else when you stand at the bottom of it.
@LeiceExplore I left that area (and the UK for that matter) in 1980... I was in my early twenties. Back, then I don't think the outdoors was on the list of my priorities. I was more into music and "Disco"... different times and mindset.
I guess they built a huge embankment instead of the more usual viaduct to dispose of the spoil from the tunnel.
The early excavators would only deal soft materials - sand, gravel, clay etc. The rocky approach cuttings would have been blasted out first though excavators could have been used to load the wagons.
Great video. I used to live in that area & explored around there.
Cheers Alan. Yes, certainly mate, the early diggers I can easily imagine were no good in heavy digging conditions, although back then, they’d have been seen as extraordinary pieces of kit, when you look at old photos, they do look a bit flimsy it has to be said. But from those early excavators, in 2024 we now have evolved to the machines we have now.
@@LeiceExplore There's some great pictures of them in "The Making of a Railway" by L T C Rolt about the building of the Great Central London Extension. They really speed up progress in the soft geological formations in the Midlands & South.
Bloody love this video Steve on the engineering is perfect. They never had any digital pissing levels. No laser guided rulers. It blows my mind like you said engineering geniuses.
Thank you very much Andy! I know mate! It’s crazy isn’t it. They did it with more simplicity in terms of equipment used, but look what they achieved
Best thing I've watched all week, respect to those navies. Thanks Steve.
Thank you mate! I’d wanted to see this brute of an embankment for a long time, but whilst editing, thought it maybe a bit boring for folks, but obviously not, because you like it! Cheers buddy.
Great culvert. Whoever installed that later concrete conduit obviously had faith in the original construction.
It's great the way you paint the picture of the embankment under construction, people had more about them back then. Thanks Steves
Cheers Lord Sloan. Yet again, an old culvert still doing what it was built to do. The brickwork inside is some of the best I’ve seen for its age.
I came here for a great culvert! And wasn't dissapointed!
Yeah this one is a really good one, the inside is absolutely floorless, great workmanship from a by gone era.
Great video, love industrial archaeology and your enthusiasm.
Thank you very much Nigel. It absolutely fascinates me.
I haven't been on that embankment since my teens in the 90s it's an impressive feat of engineering
It’s unbelievable. It’s not that long, but the height is something else. Now taken over by nature. The culvert is something else to, and still doing what it was built to do.
Fantastic! Clean as a whistle!
Thank you Clair! It will most likely outlive a lot of our infrastructure today
@@LeiceExplore - here's hoping!!
The' dunt muck about in Yorksher!!
That was a great post love to have been there with you, the culvert would have been built over a wooden frame, like viaduct arches, then removed, then the embankment soil added to the finished shape. Have you looked at lidar images, there are a few available, they will give a better view of the hugeness of the embankment as it omits the vegetation, I think the side by side Scottish maps have this option. Great stuff you are doing, 👍
Thank you Simon! Yes buddy, an awful lot of joinery went on, on these railways with all the arches that were built. I actually looked at it on LIDAR a long time ago, but never thought to add to the video! Thanks for watching.
Nice to see the LUFC Masons mark😮 classic 😂
Yeah we was in proper Lillywhites territory there! Mind ya, at this point I think we were closer to the Bantams!
Should be restored to a tourist railway, what's the delay!!
I had heard a long time ago about the tunnel being opened up as a cycle path. Such a waster really, and could be achieved certainly.
❤
Thank you
Think that the first mechanical excavators were trialled on the Northern end of the Settle and Carlisle Line in the mid 1870's. They were not a great success but obviously improved with time.
Cheers for the comment buddy. I’d love to get up there! A very difficult railway to construct that was. I’ve read a bit about it.
@@LeiceExplore If I can remember correctly it was on the most northerly contract. I think it's explained in the brilliant book, North of Leeds by P E Baughan.