Work on Kilsby Tunnel Great Northern Shaft

[xydancer]

Driving past on the A5, it's been obvious for a while something significant has been going on inside the main northern shaft at Kilsby Tunnel. Of course, inside on the train, you see nothing.

Now all is revealed in this feature in the Daventry Express (known locally as 'The Gusher' after the steam engine that originally ran between the town and Weedon on the WCML), with video and photos.

I've reproduced the text here but for the video and pics, visit www.daventryexpress.co.uk

A historic Grade II listed landmark in Daventry District, near Rugby, is undergoing work which will preserve it for decades to come. The 4,000 tonne Victorian Great Northern Shaft, above the West Coast Main Line, was originally built by Robert Stephenson (son of the 'Father of Railways' George Stephenson) to provide light and ventilation inside the 1.5-mile long Kilsby Tunnel. One of the 'great shafts' above Kilsby Tunnel is undergoing preservation work.

A 50-metre high scaffolding structure - which took 10 shifts to erect - has been installed around the inside of the shaft so the work can be carried out while nearly 400 trains continue to travel at 110mph on the track below every day. The £3.5m refurbishment project, part of Network Rail’s 'railway upgrade plan', has taken nine months and has included soot removal, brickwork repointing and repairs.

The tunnel has 12 ventilation shafts and two 'great shafts', each measuring 18m in diameter. Hasan Shah, scheme project manager at Network Rail, said: “This stretch of the West Coast Main Line is vitally important to local, regional and national rail travel. We’ve carefully planned the repairs to allow trains to run while we completed this essential work. Not impacting passengers and freight was vital and the huge, complex scaffolding structure has allowed us to do this with around 400 trains a day travelling up to 40 metres below us. The result will be a Victorian local landmark preserved for decades to come."

Kilsby Tunnel took four years to complete between 1834 and 1838 using an estimated 30 million bricks. At the time, one mile would usually take one year to build but quicksand and flooding made the Kilsby Tunnel one of the most difficult - and dangerous - engineering projects of the Victorian era, with 26 of the 1,250 men involved in its construction losing their lives. Drunkenness and recklessness may also have played its part in claiming the lives of navvies with some attempting to jump across the mouth of one of the smaller 12 shafts above the tunnel. Two or three are said to have died in doing so[QUOTE/]

 

[D365]

I take it the "Great Northern" is not related to the routes out of Kings Cross.

 

[xydancer]

I take it the "Great Northern" is not related to the routes out of Kings Cross.

Why would it be? Or is that a jest? Kilsby Tunnel has been around a lot longer and the term is in general use in names of buildings and monuments.

For those unacquainted with Kilsby, the tunnel has two main shafts - 'Great Northern' and 'Great Southern' (named for obvious reasons) and a number of smaller ones.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Better described as the northern Great Shaft I think, as there were two of them at Kilsby.
The Great Northern Railway hadn't been invented in the 1830s, and was initially promoted in the 1840s as the London & York.

 

[xydancer]

Better described as the northern Great Shaft I think, as there were two of them at Kilsby.
The Great Northern Railway hadn't been invented in the 1830s, and was initially promoted in the 1840s as the London & York.

The second 'big' shaft is known as the 'Great Southern Shaft'. Why is it some people's first instinct on here to pick fault with the messenger? One reason I read a lot but don't post often and I'm already starting to regret this one. I just thought the pics and video were interesting and give a perspective few will have seen - or ever will see.

'Great Northern Shaft' is what it's called in that article and in council documentation I've seen elsewhere, so that's what it is. What it might be, should be or whatever is a fairly pointless discussion.

 

[D365]

I’m sorry that you feel I was attacking your post. I can assure you that zero malice was intended.

Being far more familiar with the East Coast route than the West Coast, that is where my initial confusion stemmed from.

 

[edwin_m]

More detailed article, including some more history, here:

https://www.railengineer.uk/2018/04/27/stairway-to-heaven-shaft-repairs-at-kilsby-tunnel/

Ignorance promotes fear, and there was a lot of it about in the railway’s early days. Tunnels were perceived as death traps. “The furnace of the engine soon renders the air unfit for breathing,” claimed several newspapers in an 1834 article on Robert Stephenson’s proposed London & Birmingham Railway (L&BR), now known as the West Coast main line. Although shafts were proposed for its longer tunnels, “We are not aware whether the sufficiency of such an expedient for the purposes of ventilation has yet been ascertained by experiment.” Doom mongers were plentiful.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Sorry didn't mean to come across picky. Genuinely interesting post.
But I do get a bit cross at the way "Great Northern" is being applied across the north west, when they were not significant west of the Pennines.
All because their goods station in Manchester (Deansgate) was recycled as the Great Northern Centre and is now a "destination".
There's a similar situation in Liverpool where the most prominent railway heritage feature at Canning Dock is the Great Western goods terminal.
The Great Western had a tiny presence in Liverpool compared to that of the LNWR, L&Y and CLC.

 

[xydancer]

Thanks all. Great article link from edwin_m.

 

[XDM]

Xydancer many thanks for posting this. I would not have know what was happening up there if you hadn't be publicly spirited enough to tell us. Best wishes & thanks.

 

[yorksrob]

The second 'big' shaft is known as the 'Great Southern Shaft'. Why is it some people's first instinct on here to pick fault with the messenger? One reason I read a lot but don't post often and I'm already starting to regret this one. I just thought the pics and video were interesting and give a perspective few will have seen - or ever will see.

'Great Northern Shaft' is what it's called in that article and in council documentation I've seen elsewhere, so that's what it is. What it might be, should be or whatever is a fairly pointless discussion.

Thanks for posting - it is a genuinely interesting topic for me.

 

[randyrippley]

Sorry didn't mean to come across picky. Genuinely interesting post.
But I do get a bit cross at the way "Great Northern" is being applied across the north west, when they were not significant west of the Pennines.
All because their goods station in Manchester (Deansgate) was recycled as the Great Northern Centre and is now a "destination".
There's a similar situation in Liverpool where the most prominent railway heritage feature at Canning Dock is the Great Western goods terminal.
The Great Western had a tiny presence in Liverpool compared to that of the LNWR, L&Y and CLC.

So what are you going to call the Great Northern Centre if you rename it? Considering its got the "Great Northern" name emblazoned on it in white brick, any name change could be confusing. It was built by the Great Northern, no point in pretending anything different.
As to objecting to the name of the shaft: that appellation predates the existence of the Great Northern Railway so criticism there is unjustified

 

[OwlMan]

There is a short video of the work at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-44146981

 

[snowball]

There was a press release a week or two ago:

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/feeds/iconic-northamptonshire-landmark-preserved-for-decades-to-come/

A historic Grade II listed landmark on the West Coast main line near Rugby is being preserved for decades to come, thanks to Network Rail.

Repair and maintenance work has been carried out inside the impressive Victorian Great Northern Shaft which was originally built to provide light and ventilation inside the 1.5 mile long Kilsby Tunnel.

A huge scaffolding structure has been installed around the inside of the shaft, directly above the railway, so the work can be carried out while nearly 400 trains continue to travel at 110mph on the West Coast main line below every day.

The £3.5m refurbishment project, part of Network Rail’s Railway Upgrade Plan, has taken nine months and has included soot removal, brickwork repointing and repairs.

Hasan Shah, scheme project manager at Network Rail said: “This stretch of the West Coast main line is vitally important to local, regional and national rail travel. We’ve carefully planned the repairs to allow trains to run while we completed this essential work.

“Not impacting passengers and freight was vital and the huge, complex scaffolding structure has allowed us to do this with around 400 trains a day travelling up to 40 metres below us. The result will be a Victorian local landmark preserved for decades to come.”

Great Northern Shaft repair facts:

• Kilsby Tunnel is around 1.5 miles long and is situated on the West Coast main line in Northamptonshire
• The tunnel was built in the 1830s using an estimated 30 million bricks
• Kilsby Tunnel has two ‘Great Shafts’ and 12 ventilation shafts
• Around one million bricks were used to build the Great Northern Shaft which weighs over 4000 tonnes
• A unique scaffolding structure was built from the bottom of the shaft to the top to allow the work to take place
• A protection deck, around 8m above the track, has allow the team to complete brickwork repairs while working above over 25,000v overhead lines
• Around 400 trains per day run underneath the worksite on one of Europe’s busiest mixed use (passenger and freight trains) stretches of railway

The important work will make the rail network safer and more reliable for millions of passengers travelling on the West Coast main line every year. It will also preserve an iconic Victorian local landmark for future generations.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Do icicles still cause all trains to be diverted via Northampton ?

 

[DelW]

The Rail Engineer article suggests that similar work will be needed at the Great Southern Shaft, but that this is deferred for budgetary reasons. Accepting that budgets are always a constraint, that seems a pity, since it would surely be cheaper to do that work while the equipment is (was?) still on site close by, and the workforce with the knowledge of how it was done is still intact. Even with digital records, such collective knowledge can evaporate quite quickly.