Tunnel was ‘an obstacle course of hazard and glaur’

DECEMBER 28, 1961. The resident engineer on the £10 million Clyde tunnels project was conducting a visiting party through the first of the two tunnels being driven beneath the river, between Linthouse and Whiteinch.

With understandable pride – work, after all, had been going on for three years – Mr Graham U Biggart pointed out that it was possible, for the first time, to walk from one end to the other.

That word “walk” was, however, hardly appropriate, as the Glasgow Herald correspondent who had made the journey wrote the following day in these pages.

“The tunnel is an obstacle course of hazard and glaur, our correspondent noted.

“Progress was possible by the climbing of many ladders, by stepping gingerly along catwalks or between deep pools of water forming in the segments, and by generally minding one’s head.

“In the circumstances some sympathy was felt for the 500 men on the job, even for those whose earnings have reached

£50 per week.”

As he emerged from the tunnel, Mr Biggart acknowledged that the work was currently about a year behind schedule.

“The Clyde must be the hardest river in Britain to go under,” he said. “The ground is changing all the time, from soft sand right through to rock.

“It is much easier driving tunnels in the London clay.”

The first tunnel (pictured) was now completely driven – a tube of cast-iron segments 29ft in diameter and 21ft below the river bed. The second tunnel was at that time halfway across the Clyde.

Both tunnels would have two carriage lanes each 22ft wide, and below them a cycle track and pedestrian way.

The twin tunnels had been designed to form part of the city’s outer ring road, with the carriageways emerging on to flyovers at Shieldhall Road and Victoria Park.

The first tunnel was opened by the Queen on July 3, 1963.

The second tunnel was opened in March of the following year.