Penmanship tunnel collapse anniversary

[ian1944]

Appropriately on St Patrick's Day, as a lot of Irishmen would have helped build it, today is the 43rd anniversary of the collapse of Penmanshiel tunnel, which killed and entombed two men working inside in the early hours. So let's remember Peter Fowler aged 21 and Gordon Turnbull aged 33.

 

[alf]

The diversion was blasted out of granite in a deep cutting in an incredibly short time.
No transport & works orders. From memory they started blasting four days after the tunnel roof caved in.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

43 years ago would have been March 1979. Don't remember this sad accident. What happened exactly?

 

[CW2]

43 years ago would have been March 1979. Don't remember this sad accident. What happened exactly?

See my post 3046 in the Back in the Day thread for a fuller explanation.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

See my post 3046 in the Back in the Day thread for a fuller explanation

Thanks. This one, presumably...

Saturday 17/03/79 – the Penmanshiel Tunnel Collapse

On this day, work was being undertaken on Penmanshiel Tunnel to enable gauge clearance for 8'6" maritime containers. In the wee small hours of the morning the tunnel collapsed, killing two men, Peter Fowler and Gordon Turnbull. Their bodies remain interred in the tunnel to this day, as it was found the ground was too unstable to excavate.
Obviously this blocked the East Coast Main Line between Berwick and Dunbar, and an emergency timetable had to be put into place, involving diversion of some passenger and freight services via the Newcastle – Carlisle line and over Beattock, and also running some daytime services to Dunbar / Berwick with a road shuttle in between.
It was decided to build a new section of line around the tunnel site, which also involved construction of a new section of the parallel A1 trunk road so that the new railway alignment could run on the former roadway. Astonishingly this was all completed in just 5 months, and the main line reopened in August 1979.
The first days on the ECML were understandably chaotic – not least because the winter weather was especially severe that year – but eventually a revised timetable was published. For the next few months, ECML overnights diesel hauled over Beattock were a nightly occurrence, not just a periodic weekend oddity. As an impoverished student I couldn't do much, but in the coming weeks I did venture out occasionally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penmanshiel_Tunnel

 

[CW2]

Thanks. This one, presumably...

Yes, that's the one.
The temporary timetable which operated during Penmanshiel closure is available on the https://timetableworld.com website.

 

[pdeaves]

The diversion was blasted out of granite in a deep cutting in an incredibly short time.
No transport & works orders. From memory they started blasting four days after the tunnel roof caved in.

That is quite an achievement. It probably helped that the site was in the middle of nowhere (rather than, say, under a town)!

 

[Ken H]

Yes, that's the one.
The temporary timetable which operated during Penmanshiel closure is available on the https://timetableworld.com website.

I assume that was to go with the may timetable change. There would have been another one in force till 13th May, one would assume. I seem to remember they had a temporary in force in days after the collapse. So the timetable planners were burning the midnight oil in March '79.

Difficult time for the ECML with similar works taking place in Stoke and Peascliffe tunnels

Do any maritime containers go up the East cost today?

 

[Kingspanner]

There is a small memorial on the hillside above the collapsed tunnel. I've visited it, it is easily found, just off the A1.
At the time of the line closure I was 14. I remember having a Northumbrian Ranger ticket valid to Berwick, and seeing all those for Edinburgh trudging off to the buses. My uncle was Berwick stationmaster. He told me he was fed up of people asking where 1st Class was on the bus.

 

[yoyothehobo]

The diversion was blasted out of granite in a deep cutting in an incredibly short time.
No transport & works orders. From memory they started blasting four days after the tunnel roof caved in.

Pedant Alert:

It wasnt blasted out of granite, but out of greywacke. Arguably making it even trickier as the design required for a cutting in greywacke is complex due to its failure planes being much more common and quite frequently not preferential to making a stable cutting. They would have had to ensure that the cutting wouldnt have failed.

This is quite a complex bit of work and if you were designing this from scratch with no time pressures would take quite a long time.

 

[CW2]

My first trip involving the diversions via Carlisle was quite an eventful one. Keep an eye open for the "Back in the Day" thread for the 28th ...

I assume that was to go with the may timetable change. There would have been another one in force till 13th May, one would assume. I seem to remember they had a temporary in force in days after the collapse. So the timetable planners were burning the midnight oil in March '79.

Difficult time for the ECML with similar works taking place in Stoke and Peascliffe tunnels

Do any maritime containers go up the East cost today?

The timetable which operated until 13 May was pretty much identical - after the first few days at least.
All normal containers are "Maritime" dimensions nowadays, so any container train on the ECML conveys 8 foot 6 inch boxes.

 

[ian1944]

There is a small memorial on the hillside above the collapsed tunnel. I've visited it, it is easily found, just off the A1.
At the time of the line closure I was 14. I remember having a Northumbrian Ranger ticket valid to Berwick, and seeing all those for Edinburgh trudging off to the buses. My uncle was Berwick stationmaster. He told me he was fed up of people asking where 1st Class was on the bus.

There's no sign to the memorial, just to Penmanshiel on the seaward side of the A1 about a mile north of Grantshouse. The road is single-track, but there's a small pull-off area at the site. I've occasionally broken my journey to come here for some quiet reflection.