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REPORT: 9th - 11th December 2009.
West Yorkshire (mainly).

Another trip on my own to West Yorkshire this time to visit some of the big obvious tunnels that John did years ago (and a few odds 'n' ends). I like doing tunnels on my own; the adrenalin buzz is ten times as big compared to being with someone! Especially when there is a perceived additional element of risk such as flooding or a collapse. The irrational fear that builds up inside my stomach as I approach the tunnel, despite the tunnel having been there for tens of years before I was born and no doubt will be there for many years after, makes this less a 'hobby' and more of an addiction...

"It is not irrational to fear tunnels!" I hear you cry, well I beg to differ. Take a look at statistics (not that I have any empirical data you understand, it's all conjecture but who cares, it works for me!)... Lets dig out the tired old 'crossing the road' cliché, my hypothesis is: 'The number of people who get injured or killed for every 1000 attempts to cross the road is higher than the number of people who get injured or killed for every 1000 attempts to walk through a redundant tunnel and, thus, exploring closed tunnels is safer than crossing the road'. I bet I'm right! Anyway, enough of this rubbish, to the tunnels...

I knocked up an itinery to visit many of the tunnels I had still not done in the Wakefield and Halifax area. I booked a £19 room at a Travelodge somewhere on the M62 for two nights and headed off. A visit to my Mum's was again on the itinery followed by a trip up to Cumbria to look at the two tunnels on the Keswick branch. A bit out of the way I know but I wanted to clear them up before leaving two full days for West Yorkshire. The sat-nav was to the fore again as I had programmed all the tunnel access points in before leaving home. The itinery was:

Wednesday 9th

  1. Keswick 'Little Tunnel'

Thursday 10th

  1. Queensbury: Needs no introduction. I was hurrying to do as much as I could so didn't visit the flooded portal. I'll have to nip past some other time for a photo.
  2. Clayton: A 'text book tunnel'.
  3. Well Heads
  4. Wheatley
  5. Lee Bank
  6. Old Lane
  7. "Dean Clough Mill"
  8. Liversage
  9. Scar Head: It was 1am by the time I got here. Both ends in industrial complexes. The station end is in a haulage firm's yard behind a building. The yard is open 24 hours. The other end is used by a company for starage and has cameras trained on it. I'll have have a go at asking the haulage firm for a look at a more reasonable time of day next time.

Friday 11th

  1. Oakenshaw
  2. Birkenshaw
  3. Dudley Hill
  4. St. Dunstan's
  5. Pudsey Greenside
  6. Thackley
  7. Fulneck : A miniature railway in a field with its very own tunnel! Honest! Proper stone portals and all (so I'm told). It's great (they said) - but don't go, it's private...
  8. Wortley
  9. "Tingley Miniature Railway": Another abandoned miniature railway, this time in the back garden of a private house. It was midnight by now and the bloke has had pallisade fencing put up in the last few months... and my car's drive shaft fell off! I had to get the AA to put me on a lorry to take me home. I'll get you next time little tunnel...
 
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