Great video. The rooms in the tunnels were for the workmen when building the tunnel. They are rest areas, sometimes they had fireplaces to keep warm, cook food and make tea. Shorter tunnels dont have them, but this is one of the longer ones.
@@Jimmy_Jones if you have a 10 minute tea break and you are in the middle of the tunnel, you can either walk almost a mile, climb up through a shaft, or use one of the secret spy bases
Jimmy Jones if you want a secret tunnel look at Box tunnel in Wiltshire. A narrow gauge line ran alongside the mainline in the cutting before entering a parallel tunnel to feed a munitions facility below the military base above, which still exists today.
The side rooms in the tunnel would have been used as a " Bovvy " - a small place where trackworkers can sit down , warm up ,have a brew and eat their sandwiches during their breaks between maintaining the track ! There would have most likely been a small fireplace with a built in flue and benches !
I walked this tunnel in the late 90's at night on my own. Don't know why I did it, scared the hell out of me! Especially when halfway through I saw lights behind me. Turned out to be a group of friendly urban explorers.
Another advantage is secrecy. While in Silverstone you either have to disguise your prototype or risk someone with a big lens will take photos of tomorrow's car, here you can drive with a closed truck, unload the prototype and test it in its final shape without the risk of photographs taken and published. Such a tunnel is not very photo friendly.
Consistent conditions is one of the reasons for car companies using the tunnel; another reason is that they can be sure that there are no people around with cameras to take photos and leak them to the press/competitors.
@@AtheistOrphan Indeed! And when we were filming there, saw how the hangars are built so the trucks can reverse the trailer in so even a drone can't see what's about to go down the tunnel.
According to my husband, if you allow a generous count of 1 brick per 2 seconds (the higher the number, the longer it takes to count), plus doing 8 hours a day of counting, it would take 5.71 years to count 30 million bricks, and that's being generous and not allowing for holidays etc! Yes, he did the maths. Why? Who knows! :D
I had a mooch around Catesby tunnel in about 1998 when it was properly abandoned, fascinating old place with an arrow straight trackbed. A few hundred yards from the opposite portal to where those new buildings are is Catesby Viaduct which is bloomin huge and equally interesting to marvel at
Whether or not the rooms were used by workers building the tunnels, I do know they were used for the storage of fuel for steam trains, specifically wood. Wood, is used to get the furnace up to heat to get the coal to burn fast. Around the end of the 19th century wood became in short supply due to the expansion of printed material. But at the same time the conversion of shipping was towards larger steel ships. Leading to an abundance of heavily tarred wood that proved outstanding for the purpose. In fact it proved so good that they even tested the “Duke of York” on a 150 mile run using just the wood obtained from old ships. According to the Times, it achieved a staggeringly high 76 miles to the galleon.
"Beeching happened." Imagine being so famously known for a historical event that 60 years later, your last name was all that was required to explain it. There aren't many; and how many of them are for *good* things...
Imagine also that people on the other side of the world who've never even been to the UK (such as myself) know the name Beeching and his penchant for closing railways. :)
@@emdB67 Imagine having your name associated with the demise of railways in the UK when you were only do as directed by the then Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, who had significant family connections with the road construction industry. Then add to that the scorn thrown at you by Labour MPs forgetting that it was Labour Governments who implemented the Beeching recommendations. He gets a bad press which should have been directed to Marples and the cronies.
Those boarded up little side rooms/spaces were quite possibly refuges for track workers to stand in when when a train came along while they were doing track inspections etc. I believe they're still used in tunnels on the operational network but it wouldn't surprise me if track workers now cant go into tunnels unless the trains are stopped for safety reasons.
We have something like this in the USA as well. In the 1960's, the Pennsylvania Turnpike bypassed the Laurel Hill tunnel. The tunnel has been used (is being used?) by Chip Ganassi Racing for testing Indy Cars and stock cars.
The little rooms formed in the side of the tunnel would be for platelayer gangs. Typically four men would look after a mile or so of track so you use to see little huts all over the network. They would be continually checking bolts, clips and track alignment and so on.
My brother and myself walked about two thirds through the tunnel from the southern portal around 25 years ago. Good job we had torches, as there were a few random drainage pits inside, not too deep, but enough to break an ankle.
Been watching ur channel for a while and have been amazed how long ago our motorways were built and now also our railways! Seems for the last 75 years or so we’ve just stopped building our main transport infrastructure….well apart from HS2 that will be completed by the time we all live on Mars
There is a similar tunnel in Pennsylvania that is an old Turnpike tunnel that was converted into a race car testing facility, operated by Chip Ganassi racing
I am loving the increasing amount of railway stuff creeping into these videos. You appear to have an inner Jago Hazard that is increasingly taking over. Keep you videos coming!
Awesome video again! I was one of the surveyors who did the survey for the project (you can see one of the targets we put up at 3:55 ), so it’s really cool to see it finished. Not the pitch black sodden hell scape it was before!
@@AutoShenanigans From memory not a lot of repairs, just lots of debris removal! When the tunnel was partially cleared we drove a vehicle mounted scanner down there routinely to survey it as it was built. The targets were to make sure it was super accurate because it’s underground. Got plenty of videos/photos of it in its “abandoned” state if it’s if any interest! Thanks again for all your videos, I love your channel!
My profile picture is myself and my brother in one of the rest areas when we walked through the tunnel about 8 years ago (ish). We just went to check it out and happened to get there at the same time as two dudes that had proper cameras and lighting so we got some awesome pictures. Was a spectacle to walk through! There were 100’s of dead birds by the last vent shaft, and also lots of shotgun cartridges. Couldn’t really tell what sort of bird but they were big. I digress. The pictures are on 28days later.
Great video - awesome use of wrongly abandoned infrastructure, a travesty that the line was shut in the first place. Cool that it’s not just rotting away like so many other tunnels in the UK.
They probably got the idea from the Laurel Hill Tunnel in the US, which started life as a railway tunnel, was abandoned, purchased by the State to become a highway, closed down, and became a race car testing facility. Since then, it has been abandoned, but is still private property.
How inspiring and satisfying to see the old 19th century Catesby Tunnel resurrected and rejuvenated to serve UK plc in the 21st century. Well done to all involved.
I drive past this place pretty much every week and have delivered there too. I also deliver to customers who own the farm land directly above. Absolutely brilliant use of an old relic. Funnily enough I was directly above it this afternoon where all the earth works are still there in a farmers field.
I spent many a happy hour in those rest facilities when were thinking of reasons not to get back to maintenance. A shift needed to take the allocated time. It was a cold an wet tunnel.
walked this tunnel back in 2006 before any of the wind tunnel stuff was added. was kinda fun, intresting, cold wet and very dark in places the vents where some of the most intresting parts. the little side rooms where for eating your dinner in if you where working deep in the tunnel, and track work storage. There are a number of videos exploring the tunnel. one called "catesby railway tunnel full tour" by rebecca smith while 11 years old is rather good
As much as I love all your videos, that one was your best. And what made it even better is we finally get to see your Saab. I have two myself but yours is a lot nicer colour.
This one was a fairly recent addition to the fleet having replaced the 9-5 I had before. It's Fusion Blue...one of the better colours from Saab I think.
I went to find the tunnel back in the early 2000s and it was pretty difficult to get to but was a fascinating relic of the past. Great to see it being used and not left to further rot away forever.
Very much something I was expecting Jago Hazzard to cover with tales of Edward Watkins and his railway empire ambitions. Loved the history behind the tunnel Jon
This reminded me of driving my old Land Rover through the tunnel at Bekesbourne on the old Elham Valley line in Kent in the late eighties, this was also constructed because the local landowner didn’t want to see the trains from his house.
@@CycolacFan The hangar entrances are large enough for the trucks to back into so the cars can be offloaded without being seen (shown in our video). The tents can be set up to even hide cars from the neighbouring hangar, allowing two different manufacturers/teams to be there at the same time. Generally, the big companies won't do that but it's an option.
Before all this development the tunnel was closed at both ends but it was always possible to gain access despite this. There were very wet areas due to spring water and there was a drainage channel down the centre. I believe 3 million bricks were used in the construction. With wet rails and a gradient it was not pleasant for the driver and fireman on the steam locomotives if they happened to have difficulty with traction and consequent smoke in the confined space.
Side rooms in a long railway tunnel could well be for platelayers. Equivalent to platelayers' huts as still seen, now abandoned, along stretches of surface railway tracks today.
I saw this facility featured in one of the many rail related 'travel' shows of recent years that have taken advantage of improvements in drone filming quality. I think it was in an episode of "Walking Britain's Lost Railways" with Rob Bell on Channel 5. I don't remember him mentioning the bats or revealing the vehicle turntable.
not really, amazingly they've managed to find a corner of uk youtube that is more or less untouched. I dont think this would make a good tom scott video however it does make a good AS video
ARP are further down the line at Top Station Road, Brackley which was a station on what was actually The Great Central Railway. I remember it when it was still had trains stop there. Interestingly (or not, depending on your point of view) Mercedes F1 are also in Brackley, at the other end of town on a site next door to what was once known as Bottom Station, a station on the London and North Western railway. Ah, happy days before the vandal Beeching got to work.
This was great John. Hope to see more stuff like this. Tours, historical/origin stuff, technical stuff etc. So many topics on cars, car culture etc., to choose from.
Walked through the entire tunnel, from south to north, in the mid-1970's - part of a discovery process of odd places on the map. We were told by a local resident a few weeks before the Army had been to check it out. You missed the second spectacular part, the north bridge crosses a fairly deep ravine. Now no longer accessible from the tunnel itself, as you found the bat's home. I understand you get access from a nearby golf club's course. There is the Kilsby Tunnel a few miles to the north-east, which is used daily by the West Coast Mainline, so no access ever and the air shafts are crenelated. Building that had challenges too back in Victorian times.
The only time I went through it was in the late 1980s in my mate's old Range Rover. Running on the flooded invert of the tunnel, nearly went down the 4 foot deep drains up the middle between where the tracks used to be. As it was, we conked out near the North end due to water on the electrics and wound the vehicle out in gear using the starter motor! Spooky when all you can hear is the distant sound of dripping water. Still, it was probably better than the sound of an approaching train - which was kind of difficult anyway considering the track was removed when the line closed in the 1960s!
The only negative element here is the colossal lack of foresight that closed that route in the 60s as the most modern and largest loading gauge route in the south midlands and London area. It would have been ideal for the freight that now uses the roads as the tunnels and other structures would allow the current containers that have required many £millions in modification of other routes that now see battle with passenger traffic, thus making roads more attractive... hoorah for GB Apart from that what a brilliant use for an under used/out of use tunnel and they even managed to satisfy the bat nutters! I believe there is a similar facility in the US (I think Pennsylvania, but I'm not sure) but not as straight, which offers similar but different testing opportunities. Excellent work!
THere is a place in PA where the PA turnpike bypasses a tunnel and it was turned into a facility for Chip Ganassi Racing. It is a supposed to be a secret though and they don't like people exploring there.
The rooms are there as rest areas and tea points / fire places for workers In the tunnel. You will see them elsewhere in other long tunnels too. Unless somebody knows better than me, which is definitely possible, maybe, ish
We used to test cars on runways one problem is crosswinds and tailwinds stuffing up the results, It would be handy to confirm downforce results by running along the roof as well. Sergio Rinland ex Ferrari Design Engineer is listed as a director at Total Sim Ltd. He has been around since the 80s.
You should google 'Ganassi secret tunnel' / ' Ganassi laurel hill'. The guy who designed that as a race car testing facility was the same guy who designed this one. There's also an interesting story regarding an Indycar driver Darren Manning who drove up the sides of the tunnel wall. You'd never get ballsy tests like that in F1.
I travelled most of the MS&LR's London Extension on a Sheffield to Bournemouth train c.1960. (As I recall it cut across from Woodford Halse to the GWR at Banbury) The Great Central (as it became) main line was noteworthy for having island platforms, an unusual feature for a two-track line in England. I believe the line was laid out for fast running, I believe I read that at some point the fastest scheduled train in Britain was a late-night newspaper train from Marylebone to Nottingham. Re nimbyism at 3:05 - I seem to recall reading that the reason the London & Birmingham (later LNWR / West Coast Main Line) avoided Northampton 60 years earlier but not all that far away, was powerful nimby landowners. They were always around. The reason the Kyle of Lochalsh branch of the Highland climbs from Dingwall past Strathpeffer round the back of Raven Rock then drops back down to the river is reputedly because the local laird didn't want them following the river. And so on...
+Auto Shenanigans "platelayers' cabin" aka "platelayers hut" (latter outdoors generally. "Platelayers' huts are small buildings constructed beside railway lines at regular intervals (typically every 2 or 3 miles) that were designed to: store the tools and equipment used by permanent-way workers; and to provide those workers with somewhere to shelter during meal breaks and periods of bad weather. For more than a century, each team or 'gang' of track workers was assigned to a specific length of track. The members of these teams were known as ‘platelayers’, 'gangers' or ‘lengthmen’ and each team was based at a platelayers’ hut located close to its 'length'. Platelayers' huts fell out of regular use in the 1970s, when more flexible working practices were introduced. Regional teams now use vans and other road vehicles to reach locations where maintenance work is required".
I used to live in Charwelton and stumbled across this tunnel on a walk with my then girlfriend - very spooky. The gates were open and I only made it a few feet inside before bottling it and backing out!
I walked through the tunnel back in the mid 1980's. At the time, there was a lot of water flowing down through the ceiling, so I'm intrigued as to how they've managed to stop the near constant dripping. I don't remember the side rooms, but as it was nearly totally dark, I was paying much more attention to not falling down one of the open drains... IIRC, the north end was closed off shortly after.
The tunnel may have taken 3 years to build, but the entire railway was built in only 5 years, all the way to Sheffield. Luckily, we have really speeded up railway building since then with all our modern technology.
Great video. The rooms in the tunnels were for the workmen when building the tunnel. They are rest areas, sometimes they had fireplaces to keep warm, cook food and make tea. Shorter tunnels dont have them, but this is one of the longer ones.
Posted at the same time. That's scary
Ow. So not used as a secret spy base. Lol.
@@Jimmy_Jones sshhhh. It's not a door to the secret nuclear bunker.. or where merriweather is starting to control the world....
@@Jimmy_Jones if you have a 10 minute tea break and you are in the middle of the tunnel, you can either walk almost a mile, climb up through a shaft, or use one of the secret spy bases
Jimmy Jones if you want a secret tunnel look at Box tunnel in Wiltshire. A narrow gauge line ran alongside the mainline in the cutting before entering a parallel tunnel to feed a munitions facility below the military base above, which still exists today.
The side rooms in the tunnel would have been used as a " Bovvy " - a small place where trackworkers can sit down , warm up ,have a brew and eat their sandwiches during their breaks between maintaining the track ! There would have most likely been a small fireplace with a built in flue and benches !
Sam, spot on!
Imagine that as your "office" for the day. Awesome. But it probably wasnt.
I suspect that Bovvy was a souff of England pronunciation of Bothy, a common term for huts or shelters further north.
I walked this tunnel in the late 90's at night on my own. Don't know why I did it, scared the hell out of me! Especially when halfway through I saw lights behind me. Turned out to be a group of friendly urban explorers.
When we filmed there, we walked a way down before it was fully lit... and yeah, very very eerie!
Another advantage is secrecy. While in Silverstone you either have to disguise your prototype or risk someone with a big lens will take photos of tomorrow's car, here you can drive with a closed truck, unload the prototype and test it in its final shape without the risk of photographs taken and published. Such a tunnel is not very photo friendly.
Was never really a Topgear fan but this channel has slowly taken over my viewing here on YT. For obvious reasons. Topnotch content Jon.
It’s obvious what those rooms were for…planners put them in to facilitate the building a service station ….but then never bothered……😀
Needs an unused slip road...
Perhaps they were "comfort stations," considering the unpleasantness of hoofing it to one end or the other in dire need???
Consistent conditions is one of the reasons for car companies using the tunnel; another reason is that they can be sure that there are no people around with cameras to take photos and leak them to the press/competitors.
Good point.
@@AtheistOrphan Indeed! And when we were filming there, saw how the hangars are built so the trucks can reverse the trailer in so even a drone can't see what's about to go down the tunnel.
This very much reminds me of the "secret" tunnel Roger Penske and his various teams used for testing, particularly the NASCAR and Indycar team.
100% i thought the same thing!
IMPOSTER. No waving at the end.
According to my husband, if you allow a generous count of 1 brick per 2 seconds (the higher the number, the longer it takes to count), plus doing 8 hours a day of counting, it would take 5.71 years to count 30 million bricks, and that's being generous and not allowing for holidays etc! Yes, he did the maths. Why? Who knows! :D
No way you have a husband
@@samholdsworth420 Er, yes, I do.
I had a mooch around Catesby tunnel in about 1998 when it was properly abandoned, fascinating old place with an arrow straight trackbed. A few hundred yards from the opposite portal to where those new buildings are is Catesby Viaduct which is bloomin huge and equally interesting to marvel at
Whether or not the rooms were used by workers building the tunnels, I do know they were used for the storage of fuel for steam trains, specifically wood. Wood, is used to get the furnace up to heat to get the coal to burn fast. Around the end of the 19th century wood became in short supply due to the expansion of printed material. But at the same time the conversion of shipping was towards larger steel ships. Leading to an abundance of heavily tarred wood that proved outstanding for the purpose. In fact it proved so good that they even tested the “Duke of York” on a 150 mile run using just the wood obtained from old ships. According to the Times, it achieved a staggeringly high 76 miles to the galleon.
worth it for the punch line😂
Badum-tish. Lovely pay-off there. 😂
"Beeching happened."
Imagine being so famously known for a historical event that 60 years later, your last name was all that was required to explain it. There aren't many; and how many of them are for *good* things...
Imagine also that people on the other side of the world who've never even been to the UK (such as myself) know the name Beeching and his penchant for closing railways. :)
@@emdB67 Imagine having your name associated with the demise of railways in the UK when you were only do as directed by the then Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, who had significant family connections with the road construction industry.
Then add to that the scorn thrown at you by Labour MPs forgetting that it was Labour Governments who implemented the Beeching recommendations.
He gets a bad press which should have been directed to Marples and the cronies.
Names often become words if they do something big. EG. Diesel. Watt. Nightingale. Thatcherism. Trump. Hitler.
Those boarded up little side rooms/spaces were quite possibly refuges for track workers to stand in when when a train came along while they were doing track inspections etc.
I believe they're still used in tunnels on the operational network but it wouldn't surprise me if track workers now cant go into tunnels unless the trains are stopped for safety reasons.
Sadly you are correct. These days a tunnel has to be closed to trains before any staff are allowed in them...
We have something like this in the USA as well. In the 1960's, the Pennsylvania Turnpike bypassed the Laurel Hill tunnel. The tunnel has been used (is being used?) by Chip Ganassi Racing for testing Indy Cars and stock cars.
The little rooms formed in the side of the tunnel would be for platelayer gangs. Typically four men would look after a mile or so of track so you use to see little huts all over the network. They would be continually checking bolts, clips and track alignment and so on.
So a bit like a tea room for the rail maintenance crews?
Fantastic John, thank you!
Thanks Mike, very kind indeed, I hope you enjoyed the video! Have a good one mate
My brother and myself walked about two thirds through the tunnel from the southern portal around 25 years ago. Good job we had torches, as there were a few random drainage pits inside, not too deep, but enough to break an ankle.
I knew someone who fell in one the first time he went down there. Knocked himself unconscious!
This must be one of the best YT channels in the UK. Very informative. Thanks.
Been watching ur channel for a while and have been amazed how long ago our motorways were built and now also our railways! Seems for the last 75 years or so we’ve just stopped building our main transport infrastructure….well apart from HS2 that will be completed by the time we all live on Mars
its alomst like ww2 happened and the country never financially got over it :/
There is a similar tunnel in Pennsylvania that is an old Turnpike tunnel that was converted into a race car testing facility, operated by Chip Ganassi racing
it was a railway tunnel to begin with.
That's what I was thinking of at first.
I am loving the increasing amount of railway stuff creeping into these videos. You appear to have an inner Jago Hazard that is increasingly taking over. Keep you videos coming!
Bring back the Victorians...incredible engineers from what i have seen in my work.
Awesome video again! I was one of the surveyors who did the survey for the project (you can see one of the targets we put up at 3:55 ), so it’s really cool to see it finished. Not the pitch black sodden hell scape it was before!
Great to hear from someone who was involved. Was there much "repair work" required to the original structure? What's the deal with the "targets" ?
@@AutoShenanigans From memory not a lot of repairs, just lots of debris removal! When the tunnel was partially cleared we drove a vehicle mounted scanner down there routinely to survey it as it was built. The targets were to make sure it was super accurate because it’s underground. Got plenty of videos/photos of it in its “abandoned” state if it’s if any interest!
Thanks again for all your videos, I love your channel!
@@AlphaViper That is very cool! I wish we had those when we filmed our video there! I don't know about Jon, but I'd like to see those photos!
@@AutoShenanigans laser distancing/ elevation changes
My profile picture is myself and my brother in one of the rest areas when we walked through the tunnel about 8 years ago (ish). We just went to check it out and happened to get there at the same time as two dudes that had proper cameras and lighting so we got some awesome pictures. Was a spectacle to walk through! There were 100’s of dead birds by the last vent shaft, and also lots of shotgun cartridges. Couldn’t really tell what sort of bird but they were big. I digress. The pictures are on 28days later.
I'll have a look.. I love a bit of 28DL.
Great video - awesome use of wrongly abandoned infrastructure, a travesty that the line was shut in the first place. Cool that it’s not just rotting away like so many other tunnels in the UK.
Love the Gran Turismo theme at the end, nice touch 👍😁.
They probably got the idea from the Laurel Hill Tunnel in the US, which started life as a railway tunnel, was abandoned, purchased by the State to become a highway, closed down, and became a race car testing facility. Since then, it has been abandoned, but is still private property.
I used to walk through that tunnel with friends before it got converted, it was an experience
How inspiring and satisfying to see the old 19th century Catesby Tunnel resurrected and rejuvenated to serve UK plc in the 21st century. Well done to all involved.
It's a cool place!
I drive past this place pretty much every week and have delivered there too. I also deliver to customers who own the farm land directly above. Absolutely brilliant use of an old relic. Funnily enough I was directly above it this afternoon where all the earth works are still there in a farmers field.
Where is that exactly ? I want to have a look in Google maps
@@UraFlight Charwelton, Northants on the A361 Enjoy
@@UraFlight don't forget the magnificent viaduct just out of the north portal
@@JMH7506 Thank you so much for the directions
@@whyyoulidl What exactly the name of that viaduct ?
The mysterious rooms built into the sides were used to store maintenance crew toolboxes and to take breaks in, etc.
Yes I've seen these with fireplaces. Like micro canteens :)
I spent many a happy hour in those rest facilities when were thinking of reasons not to get back to maintenance. A shift needed to take the allocated time. It was a cold an wet tunnel.
Fantastic - a great use for an old tunnel and also great use of Lemmings to describe the construction of a tunnel too!
Snowed in and then this drops. Best day ever 😂😂
walked this tunnel back in 2006 before any of the wind tunnel stuff was added. was kinda fun, intresting, cold wet and very dark in places the vents where some of the most intresting parts. the little side rooms where for eating your dinner in if you where working deep in the tunnel, and track work storage. There are a number of videos exploring the tunnel. one called "catesby railway tunnel full tour" by rebecca smith while 11 years old is rather good
As much as I love all your videos, that one was your best. And what made it even better is we finally get to see your Saab. I have two myself but yours is a lot nicer colour.
This one was a fairly recent addition to the fleet having replaced the 9-5 I had before. It's Fusion Blue...one of the better colours from Saab I think.
You would have thought this was a tom scott/geoff Marshall/ Jago Hazzard video
Or Paul and Rebecca Whitewick.
Someone obviously watched Austin Powers and thought "we'd better fit a turntable.."
D'oh, I just made the same shagadelic comment a few secs ago! U beat me to it
Just down the road from me, I drive past it everyday. Nice to see it getting some attention.
I went to find the tunnel back in the early 2000s and it was pretty difficult to get to but was a fascinating relic of the past. Great to see it being used and not left to further rot away forever.
I love the orange tape pointing out the doorbell
Very much something I was expecting Jago Hazzard to cover with tales of Edward Watkins and his railway empire ambitions. Loved the history behind the tunnel Jon
...and not a Yerkes in sight!
This reminded me of driving my old Land Rover through the tunnel at Bekesbourne on the old Elham Valley line in Kent in the late eighties, this was also constructed because the local landowner didn’t want to see the trains from his house.
Careful, thats's almost informative, professional and useful to me!
You missed another big advantage of a tunnel. No way for anybody to get a telephoto shot of your latest creation.
And also the reason for the big tents at the entrance that allow covered trucks to unload.
@@CycolacFan The hangar entrances are large enough for the trucks to back into so the cars can be offloaded without being seen (shown in our video). The tents can be set up to even hide cars from the neighbouring hangar, allowing two different manufacturers/teams to be there at the same time. Generally, the big companies won't do that but it's an option.
Thought that would have been the biggest reason 🤷♂️
Before all this development the tunnel was closed at both ends but it was always possible to gain access despite this.
There were very wet areas due to spring water and there was a drainage channel down the centre.
I believe 3 million bricks were used in the construction.
With wet rails and a gradient it was not pleasant for the driver and fireman on the steam locomotives if they happened to have difficulty with traction and consequent smoke in the confined space.
Bridges, abandoned buildings every now and then, now Victorian tunnels 😍
You know the way to a man’s heart 😂😂
Chunnel opened in 94, construction started in 88.
I'm gonna be honest. I misread the thumbnail as "London Underground car test track" and thought this was a Jago Hazzard video.
Side rooms in a long railway tunnel could well be for platelayers.
Equivalent to platelayers' huts as still seen, now abandoned, along stretches of surface railway tracks today.
I saw this facility featured in one of the many rail related 'travel' shows of recent years that have taken advantage of improvements in drone filming quality. I think it was in an episode of "Walking Britain's Lost Railways" with Rob Bell on Channel 5. I don't remember him mentioning the bats or revealing the vehicle turntable.
Nice use of the Ivor the engine music for the background.
More videos about rail infrastructure please!
Seems you're covering all my favourite things, now we just need canals haha
Great vid - keep up the good work! You're nearing those 100k followers!
Starting to tread on Tom Scotts toes a little I think ! still good even so.
not really, amazingly they've managed to find a corner of uk youtube that is more or less untouched. I dont think this would make a good tom scott video however it does make a good AS video
@@XaviMacBash This is excellent video.
To do this video about some little known, but interesting thing, its not Tom Scott, but Tom Scott's sarcastic and dead pan cousin.😁
@@andymerrett can u imagine a Tom Scott, Tim Traveller tag teaming against an AS and Jago colab? What a rap battle that'd be...😆
I actually found this interesting, would love to see more videos like this
Thanks, there's not many facilities like this out there!!
ARP are further down the line at Top Station Road, Brackley which was a station on what was actually The Great Central Railway. I remember it when it was still had trains stop there. Interestingly (or not, depending on your point of view) Mercedes F1 are also in Brackley, at the other end of town on a site next door to what was once known as Bottom Station, a station on the London and North Western railway. Ah, happy days before the vandal Beeching got to work.
There's a lot of F1/motorsport in the area, with Silverstone near by it makes sense.
The gran turismo (s) soundtrack is an absolute bop.
Love these midweek videos. Keep up the hard work John and team
Brilliant, really enjoyed that. Visited the nearby viaduct last year.
Very interesting video. Also they can use this tunnel as a movie set
This was great John. Hope to see more stuff like this. Tours, historical/origin stuff, technical stuff etc. So many topics on cars, car culture etc., to choose from.
Walked through the entire tunnel, from south to north, in the mid-1970's - part of a discovery process of odd places on the map. We were told by a local resident a few weeks before the Army had been to check it out.
You missed the second spectacular part, the north bridge crosses a fairly deep ravine. Now no longer accessible from the tunnel itself, as you found the bat's home. I understand you get access from a nearby golf club's course.
There is the Kilsby Tunnel a few miles to the north-east, which is used daily by the West Coast Mainline, so no access ever and the air shafts are crenelated. Building that had challenges too back in Victorian times.
The small rooms would be workmens or platelayers huts where they stored equipment or could have a brew.
Great video as always mate, never knew this existed at all or ever heard of it, so was very enjoyable to watch.
The only time I went through it was in the late 1980s in my mate's old Range Rover. Running on the flooded invert of the tunnel, nearly went down the 4 foot deep drains up the middle between where the tracks used to be. As it was, we conked out near the North end due to water on the electrics and wound the vehicle out in gear using the starter motor!
Spooky when all you can hear is the distant sound of dripping water.
Still, it was probably better than the sound of an approaching train - which was kind of difficult anyway considering the track was removed when the line closed in the 1960s!
Nice one, John. I can forsee that place appearing in pop videos in the near future.
Outstanding. Very good to see you getting access to this and bringing it to us, thank you.
Wasn't it great. We've also been there and still learned loads from this video!
Side rooms were most likely to take shelter from tunnel fires.
or a break room for tunnel maintenance crews to rest/store tools.
The only negative element here is the colossal lack of foresight that closed that route in the 60s as the most modern and largest loading gauge route in the south midlands and London area. It would have been ideal for the freight that now uses the roads as the tunnels and other structures would allow the current containers that have required many £millions in modification of other routes that now see battle with passenger traffic, thus making roads more attractive... hoorah for GB
Apart from that what a brilliant use for an under used/out of use tunnel and they even managed to satisfy the bat nutters! I believe there is a similar facility in the US (I think Pennsylvania, but I'm not sure) but not as straight, which offers similar but different testing opportunities. Excellent work!
Great video, very interesting, keep up the good work...
THere is a place in PA where the PA turnpike bypasses a tunnel and it was turned into a facility for Chip Ganassi Racing. It is a supposed to be a secret though and they don't like people exploring there.
I travelled through this tunnel as a young lad with my Grandmother on our way to Nottingham.
Another midweek bonus!
Great content John 👍
Thanks
You Beat @TomScottGo to it.
YES! This was a brilliant episode. More please.
Fantastic facilities I didnt know were on my doorstep. Xx
Every day is a school day, didn't know anything about this. Thanks for researching and sharing.
i believe the large alcoves where basically p way huts underground, that is simple comfort facilities for mantinence workers
A bit of Ivor the Engine theme tune in the middle there . . . nice!
The rooms are there as rest areas and tea points / fire places for workers In the tunnel.
You will see them elsewhere in other long tunnels too.
Unless somebody knows better than me, which is definitely possible, maybe, ish
We used to test cars on runways one problem is crosswinds and tailwinds stuffing up the results, It would be handy to confirm downforce results by running along the roof as well. Sergio Rinland ex Ferrari Design Engineer is listed as a director at Total Sim Ltd. He has been around since the 80s.
Wow awesome video! Love a good tunnel. Thanks for sharing this.
A dark and moist tunnel by any chance?
@@Matityahu755 🤣
cracking episode john what a great use of an old railway tunnel nice to know all the hard work of the navvies is still being useful today 🙂
Thanks mate! It was great to get a walk around and a proper visit and absolutely, it's great that we've re-used something. Cheers mate
@@AutoShenanigans your welcome john the content in your episodes is always useful and imformative 🙂
seamless transition.
You should google 'Ganassi secret tunnel' / ' Ganassi laurel hill'. The guy who designed that as a race car testing facility was the same guy who designed this one. There's also an interesting story regarding an Indycar driver Darren Manning who drove up the sides of the tunnel wall. You'd never get ballsy tests like that in F1.
Loving the midweek clips!
I travelled most of the MS&LR's London Extension on a Sheffield to Bournemouth train c.1960. (As I recall it cut across from Woodford Halse to the GWR at Banbury) The Great Central (as it became) main line was noteworthy for having island platforms, an unusual feature for a two-track line in England. I believe the line was laid out for fast running, I believe I read that at some point the fastest scheduled train in Britain was a late-night newspaper train from Marylebone to Nottingham.
Re nimbyism at 3:05 - I seem to recall reading that the reason the London & Birmingham (later LNWR / West Coast Main Line) avoided Northampton 60 years earlier but not all that far away, was powerful nimby landowners. They were always around. The reason the Kyle of Lochalsh branch of the Highland climbs from Dingwall past Strathpeffer round the back of Raven Rock then drops back down to the river is reputedly because the local laird didn't want them following the river. And so on...
Yes the GV was often used for excursions from the North to the South, or East Coast
+Auto Shenanigans
"platelayers' cabin" aka "platelayers hut" (latter outdoors generally.
"Platelayers' huts are small buildings constructed beside railway lines at regular intervals (typically every 2 or 3 miles) that were designed to:
store the tools and equipment used by permanent-way workers; and to
provide those workers with somewhere to shelter during meal breaks and periods of bad weather.
For more than a century, each team or 'gang' of track workers was assigned to a specific length of track. The members of these teams were known as ‘platelayers’, 'gangers' or ‘lengthmen’ and each team was based at a platelayers’ hut located close to its 'length'.
Platelayers' huts fell out of regular use in the 1970s, when more flexible working practices were introduced. Regional teams now use vans and other road vehicles to reach locations where maintenance work is required".
And the huts are used for snogging by teenagers.
Onto another Saab I see! 🇸🇪
I used to live in Charwelton and stumbled across this tunnel on a walk with my then girlfriend - very spooky. The gates were open and I only made it a few feet inside before bottling it and backing out!
I walked through the tunnel back in the mid 1980's. At the time, there was a lot of water flowing down through the ceiling, so I'm intrigued as to how they've managed to stop the near constant dripping. I don't remember the side rooms, but as it was nearly totally dark, I was paying much more attention to not falling down one of the open drains...
IIRC, the north end was closed off shortly after.
Wonderful stuff. Thanks
Great video John really enjoyed watching
Great piece of work, Jon.
Interesting video, enjoyed watching it
also, that's a nice 9-3
Thank you for that little gem of information Bravo more please
The tunnel may have taken 3 years to build, but the entire railway was built in only 5 years, all the way to Sheffield. Luckily, we have really speeded up railway building since then with all our modern technology.
At least its being used. Being that it was not very old means it was in pretty good condition I spose. Thanx 4 sharing.