This happens quite a lot. We regularly get pager messages reporting that a train has hit something in the tunnel and then everything is put on hold or diverted until the MOM▸ (Mobile Ops Manager) has walked through and checked. (What a job!). Invariably, the next message is: nothing found, services back to normal (apart, obviously, from the inevitable ensuing disruptions).
The general consensus is that it is possibly debris on the tracks that has fallen from a freight train or a brick falling from the roof and hitting the train. I can understand the driver wanting to get out quickly - it's horrible down there and nobody goes through unless they're pretty sure they can get out the other side!
Did you know that there are 36 huge pumps which keep the tunnel dry, of which 24 must be working continuously. If they stopped the tunnel would fill with water in 20 minutes. They pump between 23 and 30 million gallons a day into the Severn. And did you also know that it is fresh water? It doesn't come from the Estuary, it is from a huge underground spring between the roof of the tunnel and the seabed. And did you know that it took 76.4 million bricks to build the tunnel and that they are now 120 years old?
You wouldn't catch me walking through it!
Normally thats nearly the only message some days that have something to do with the ex-wessex things, the pager is pretty boring if someone from the ex-
GW▸ side is on the pager's
