[otd] Thursday 11th May 1911: last commercial boat - Thames and Severn summit

[whole diary]

[Mark A]

This is both a day and date anniversary, 11/05/11 saw the last boat from the Stroud valley through the tunnel and to, was it Cirencester - with a load of bricks.

(Tenuous rail connections here, as the canal was for a time owned by the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), there was a firm proposal to convert its route and the tunnel itself to a railway line - conversion of the tunnel would have involved a shortish new section at the western end, built on a curve to avoid the bend in the canal's alignment after it emerged from the hillside. Also, the canal's construction would have provided information to the engineers in charge of the later rail tunnel nearby - though not sufficient for Network Rail not to be ambushed by a most unpleasant legacy - the rediscovery that the construction shafts had been excavated to a considerably deeper level than the tunnel that was eventually built, and the cappings beneath the rail line through the tunnel as built were failing...)

Mark

[paul7575]

I expect digging the construction shafts much deeper than required gave them
somewhere to put the spoil?   

Paul

[grahame]

This is both a day and date anniversary, 11/05/11 saw the last boat from the Stroud valley through the tunnel and to, was it Cirencester - with a load of bricks.

Added to the "On this day" database ...and more pictures of the tunnel at https://www.cotswoldcanals.net/sapperton-canal-tunnel.php

... and I note that the opening of Sapperton Tunnel is the very earliest event we have "On this Day" - all 430 listed in chronological order (here) through to the last day of the through Bristol to Waterloo service on 10th December 2021