On Saturday the 15th of September as part of the Heritage Open Days event I took a trip deep below the streets of Leicester into the Robert Stevenson designed Glenfield railway tunnel with Bill Pemberton of the Leicestershire Industrial History Society.
We donned our hi-viz jackets and after a safety briefing from our tour guide headed into the brick lined semi-darkness of the tunnel.
as our eyes became accustomed to the darkness we where shown ventilation shafts transporting sunlight and air from above into the subterranean space which remained at a constant 10 degrees Celsius throughout.
Our guide then pointed out numbers on the wall written by the workers and marking distances from the tunnel mouth, moving further into the tunnel we where shown another ventilation shaft which like many of its duplicates along the tunnel length is situated in a private garden on the surface.
As we ventured deeper into the tunnel we passed numerous refuges (small archways in the tunnel wall) used by railway workers to avoid trains traveling through the tunnel.
After coming to a point 400 yards in, the lights where switched off and a ARGO TRANSACORD recording of a Midland '2.F' class 0-6-0 traveling through the very tunnel we where now stood in was played, the vinyl recording of which I had with me and a short extract of can be heard at the beginning and end of my film.
To book a place on future tours run by the group please visit
www.lihs.org.uk
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