Tesco Tunnel : Truth Told – Part One
Frankly, the station hasn’t changed much since the picture below was taken in 1906.
It is much the same back in the days of sombre and boring all-over blue diesel unts
But hold on, observant reader; where did that tunnel come from?
And there it is again, this time at an angle viewed from above Station Approach.
If we go to the top of the tunnel where once we would have been standing on an arched road bridge …
… we can gaze down upon trains, platforms and footbridge. But if we turn through 180 degrees we find a Tesco store …
… where once was a cutting. And here it is from the air.
And a similar elevated vista showing the tunnel mouth (bottom) at the end of the station platforms and the exit from said tunnel (top)..
Now, it is not unknown for a tunnel to be opened up and replaced with a cutting. fbb remembers Broomhouse Tunnel just north of Chesterfield on the line to Sheffield.
It was quite short (92 yards) and in need of repair. See its smallness on an old mao; it lies just beneath the “B” of “The Brushes”.
The modern map shows the cutting after opening up.
On electrified lies it is easy to build property over the tracks, even over station sites and in short-of-lad urban areas this is often economically viable. And there are no nasty diesel fumes to contend with.
… but now much of the station is covered by development.
The station is almost completely “underground” …
… with platforms on the West Coast main line tracks (numbered 3 and 4) hardly ever used.
But Gerrards Cross?
But what happened next caused a few red races.
But here is a clue.
The flush was operated by a simple siphon whereby a plug of water was lifted through a “U” shaped pipe to set the siphon going; the water then flowed until the tank was empty. The refill was controlled by a floating ball valve which sank to the bottom of the tank and then opened the inwards flow of filling water.
This bit of plastic had broken. Upon investigation, your wise and wonderfully author thought the plastic was polystyrene and thus stickable with modeller’s polystyrene cement.
So the shiny bit screws into a white plastic bit like an upside down uncovered lampshade, then clips into a white box out of which passes a yellow tube.
It was mended on Monday afternoon and was still working yesterday evening at bed time.
For fbb, there were ny real surprises in Roger’s blog of yesterday. He was riding the Stagecoach autonomous bus from nowhere much (Ferrytoll Park and Ride) to nowhere very useful (Edinburgh Park) via the bus only original Forth bridge.
That’s £6.1 million of my money and yours being wasted – yet have they seen the price of lamb chops?
Roger’s conclusion was politely inconclusive,
“Then what” indeed.
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