Talk:Chipping Sodbury Tunnel

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Purpose of the tunnel

The article states "Built to hide the line from the nearby Badminton House" - I dispute that. First, there is its position - the tunnel is entirely to the west of Badminton house: the eastern portal is more than a mile to the south west, and the western portal is much further away. Second, there is the profile of the country through which the railway had to run - the land near the former Chipping Sodbury station has an elevation of 100 metres, and the land above the tunnel exceeds 190 metres at one point before descending to 120 metres near the former Badminton station. This is the Cotswolds, through which a two-mile cutting up to 80 metres deep would have been prohibitively expensive.

It was built for the same purpose as Box Tunnel a few miles to the south - to get the railway from one side of the Cotswolds to the other without severe gradients - indeed, the eastbound gradient is 1 in 300 whereas that at Box is 1 in 100, three times as steep, and it's 1234 yards longer than Box Tunnel. With a length of 2+1⁄2 miles, this was no mere vanity tunnel, like the 400-yard one south of Kemble. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:21, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]