Box Tunnel, east of Bath, on the Great Western Main Line - moved topics, merged posts

[whole diary]

[Madinventor]

Please can I add some information to your discussion
The sun will not shine through the IKB^▸ (Isambard Kingdom Brunel)’s Box tunnel not on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th or 10th of April or the September equivalent not at the moment anyway.
Several things conspire to stop this from happening.
The 6.00am train from Bristol fills the tunnel with diesel fumes before sunrise, recent electrification might soon resolve this first problem.
The south embankment does cover a portion of the tunnel’s eastern portal, when viewed from the western side, it obstructs from the bottom left corner diagonally up at about 45° to the point where the roof curve meets the top of the right hand tunnel wall.
At the moment there is also very tall shrubs and trees on this embankment which blocks the rest of the tunnel’s alignment out completely.
So recent investigations by the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) engineers in 2017 was always going to fail to prove this so called “myth” really works.
The next problem is the English morning weather, how many April days have zero cloud or mist between Bath and Reading at 06.30 am ?
I took a picture on the 9th of April 1982 of the sun shining down the tunnel or at least as good as it ever will on the 9th of April. This photo was the cover photo for the New Civil Engineers investigation 4th April 1984 p. 29 - 31
Why did I get a picture of the sun illuminating the tunnel brightly and the the reflection bouncing off all four rails, here is the reasons…
Recently before 1982 (don’t know the exact year) the eastern south embankment was cleared of all shrubbery and trees.
1982 was a Bank Holiday so there was no 06.00 am train out of Bristol, the best image was taken at about 06.44 am, in those days you were limited to 24 colour shots using a Practica SLR 35 camera.
It was the clearest night I ever saw when driving to Box, which I did from 1977 until 1985. After which I realised I would never see the sun shine through it again so stopped visiting the area.
Also it was different times when it comes to safety, annually up to 20 people would be on the tracks with genuine interest and so would GWR staff assisting us and allowing us to be there, after 1983 the rail staff were only there to keep us out of railway property.
By the way only me and a guy from Birmingham driving a 2CV were there on the 9th April in 1982.
I do believe that a better date is the 6th or 7th April (which all mathematical calculations confirm) and why I think this is,  there is a picture taken by Jim Barnes in 1985 a year where the shrubbery was still low on the east south embankment allowing you to see what is clearly the sun within the Eastern portal. If the 6.00 am train from Bristol had not filled the tunnel with fumes 10 minutes before he took that picture that would be the most stunning proof and I doubt if you would have been able to look up the tunnel at the sun with the naked eye without hurting your eyes. That sun is penetrating through 2 miles of confined diesel fumes.
So don’t rush off trying to see this phenomenon, not until the trees are cleared, 100% of trains are electric using the line or it has to be a Bank Holiday, you need one of the best clear nights prior to “the 6th or 7th of April” and permission from Network Rail or GWR, and a key to the Western access gate.
Sorry to disappoint you all and unless you are very very young now you have no chance of seeing IKB’s genius creation as intended, they will cut the trees again but not until they are big and old enough to cause a danger to the trains.

Regards   david@needhams.uk.com, Chesterfield

[Chris from Nailsea]

Wow! 

Thank you very much for that fascinating post, Madinventor - and may I offer you a very warm welcome to the Coffee Shop forum.

Are any of those pictures already available for us to view, anywhere on the internet - or are you possibly able to give us any links to them here?

[Madinventor]

Chris,
Thanks for the response and continued interest
I do need to make a couple of corrections,
Firstly, the New Civil Engineer investigation was the 4th April 1985 not 1984
Secondly, my photo was not the cover photo but the article photo on page 31
I looked for the photographs today, and failed to find them but I did find the negatives, herewith a link to a previous posting of my photograph
https://www.flickr.com/photos/28512889@N05/24777797845/
or put in to Google “David Needham Box Tunnel”
I do have a copy of the 4th April 1985 New Civil Engineer though posting it would and could infringe their copyright and I would need express permission from Metropolis International Ltd the current owners of the title.
Looking at the web photo which is nowhere near as clear as the actual Number 13 picture that was originally printed, it is today clear to me that the sun was close but not perfectly aligned on the 9th of April, it was just a very clear a day and a clean tunnel which makes my photograph definitely the best April the 9th picture and probably as good a picture as has ever been taken from the western end of the sun at the eastern end.
My view always was that if you can see the sky from the western end looking east at some point the sun’s travels across our sky must pass the point of the tunnel alignment.
Today's issue is the sky is not visible through the tunnel as per my previous post.

[Bmblbzzz]

For more than two centuries, railway enthusiasts, engineers and scientists have tried to solve the mystery of Box tunnel, near Bath.

They have combed the history books, done the maths and carried out practical experiments to try to work out whether its creator, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, really did design the two-mile tunnel so that the rising sun shone right through it on his birthday, 9 April.

But now a new theory has emerged from a retired engineer and physicist who has reassessed the science, had a fresh look at the Brunel family tree and concluded that in fact the great railway builder might have designed the tunnel so that the phenomenon occurred not on his birthday but on that of a little-known sister – 6 April.

Peter Maggs, who has been working on the puzzle for more than 30 years, said he had a “eureka moment” when he discovered that Brunel’s sister, Emma Joan, was born on 6 April.

Continues...
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/apr/05/new-twist-in-mystery-of-brunels-birthday-sunrise

[infoman]

Sunrise is 06:32am,could some one put a special from Bath to Chippenham about the same time.

Visibilty forecast is "very good"

[smokey]

Beware of the light at the end of the Tunnel It could be a train coming!

[Clan Line]

Beware of the light at the end of the Tunnel It could be a train coming!

Some years ago I went "wrong side" from Bathampton up to Thingley - I remember thinking then that the driver must have been hoping that the spot of light he could see in the distance was the tunnel mouth and not another train coming the other way !!

[Chris from Nailsea]

For more than two centuries, railway enthusiasts, engineers and scientists have tried to solve the mystery of Box tunnel, near Bath.

Nonsense: Box Tunnel didn't open until June 1841. 

[matth1j]

https://bathnewseum.com/2025/11/06/box-tunnel-blues/

The portal leading into Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s historic Grade 11* listed Box rail tunnel may be placed on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register.
:
It saddens me that such an important example of the railway history of this country, in particular when the country is celebrating 200 years of the Railway under Railway 200, is in such poor condition.

[Witham Bobby]

Vegetation seems to be a feature of much of the railway's masonry structures these days

Perhaps I'm old fashioned to beleive that keeping trees, shrubs and under/overgrowth under control is more cost effective than allowing them to reach a stage where they can be destructive

[Mark A]

It's not old fashioned. It's difficult for any vegetation that puts roots into structures to be other than bad news, it's something that brings avoidable expense as time passes. Ditto trees growing within a certain distance above a retaining wall. It's now rather more difficult to organise clearing the stuff alongside a live railway line but it should be part and parcel of maintaining the railway.

Mark

[grahame]

The main railway from London to Bristol passes briefly through a corner of the Melksham and Devizes constituency, including the west portal (the more famous one) of Box Tunnel.  Which is in what heck of a state.   Probably because I have transport links I've been asked if I can persuade Network Rail to move the repairs up from the autumn ...  following up here with an edited reply which is being shared around Box anyway, and documents the layout for the wider readership

Sadly, my immediate thoughts are that it would be a very tall order to get substantive repairs to the Box Tunnel(s?) portal(s) completed in time for 11th September - just 8 months away.  Where, perhaps, you might have a better chance to provide a celebration of 185 years would be to ask / work with Network Rail to provide a display to help inform attenders about the good work planned for the autumn.

At the risk of explaining things you already know (but feel free to share this with others who don’t have the railway involvement of you and I ) …

Network Rail plans things many years ahead - frustratingly so - and that includes infrastructure repairs.  There are elements of heritage concern in there, but balanced against that at present is a requirement for them to cut 2000 out of 40,000 jobs and at the same time re-organise into Great British Railways that takes over train operation too.  If it’s safe and trains can still reliably run, it probably won’t be a priority to try and move up a potentially major and highly specialised operation for completion in advance of repairs.

Great Western Railway is currently a First Group company contracted to operate trains, with income going to HMG and then money being payed to the company to run the trains as - err - cheaply as they can.   Come this Autumn, it is probable (almost certain) that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) will be nationalised - the GWR name will remain, but the objective will not be to reach company goals, but to reach Department for Transport subsidiary goals.   Current GWR and First Group direction has no financial interest in developing public conception or future traffic - though the vast majority of the team ARE very interested in what they’ll be doing this time next year.

Box is in the Melksham and Devizes constituency - perhaps that’s a reason you ask me?  The London to Bristol (Great Western) main line passes through Box tunnel. 
* It enters the tunnel to the east in the Chippenham Constituency of Sarah Gibson, who a has strongly picked up the baton of the campaign for a new or re-opened station in Corsham,  and it might happen - some blockers have been removed.  Of anyone, [redacted], you know how long and hard fought this has been, and you know the nature of these things that for many years frustrations will occur but then it might - just might happen. 
* It leaves Box Tunnel through the western portal now in the Melksham Constituency of Brian Mathew. It passed under the A4, above Box Village past the site of Box Mill Lane Halt, and the passes through the second shorter tunnel at Box Middle Hill.  The site of Box Station follows (really in Ashley rather than Box) and then the railway runs along the valley past  Shockerwick
* It passses into the Bath constituency between Bathford and Batheaston before crossing the valley of the River Avon to Bathampton - no longer in Wiltshire and looked after by Wera Hobhouse.   Also a whole new larger authority / local transport authority, WE(M)CA rather than Wiltshire.

You would need to be quick (closes 2nd February) but the final CCIF^▸ (Customer and Communities Improvement Fund) (Customer and Community Infrastructure Fund) tranche from GWR could be woth an application.   It would be a very long shot - sadly, you don’t in Box have many rails customers.  There’s no station and the likely places for re-openings would be in Sarah’s or Wera’s constituencies;  I have seen the question of a station at Box (Ashley) raised but it quickly raised so many issues that in the current environment it’s a resounding “that won’t happen”.

I would - suggest - working with the Network Rail contacts the team already has planning the autumn repairs for a set of display boards to celebrate the tunnel and to look ahead to the works that would / will help preserve the heritage.   As I recall, the view to the tunnel mouth of the main tunnel is from the main road and there may be a safety issue there with a substantial number of visitors, and there ia park / picnic area (?) off to one side which is an element of an interpretation centre. Something to build on?  Vegetation clearance to get a better view - but is it nesting season?    I do recall walking over the top of Middle Hill tunnel - in fact I found a picture of it just the other day - and there is a nice and distant view form there and perhaps a somewhat safer alternative.

[Chris from Nailsea]

I have taken something of a liberty in moving grahame's post above and merging it here with several others - all of them relating specifically to Box Tunnel.

CfN^▸ (Chris from Nailsea, an administrator on this forum).