THE UNNECESSARY TUNNEL

Catesby Tunnel’s existence is due entirely to Henry Arthur Attenborough, owner of the Catesby Estate, who did not want his view spoiled by chuffing Great Central Railway locomotives. Topographically, there is no hill that a cutting could not have overcome, but in little more than two years the 2997-yard tunnel was mined.

Lined with some 30million ‘blue bricks’, the twin-track tunnel is straight but falls to the north on a gentle gradient of 1:176. The first coal trains started running through it on 25 July 1898 and the tunnel retired from operational service on 3 September 1966.