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