Report - Moseley Green Tunnel - Forest of Dean - Aug 14

[Lenston]

Visited with a non member​

After a failed walk to the northern portal we made it to the southern, great little tunnel with some nice features​

Some History​

The Severn & Wye Railway was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1809 and opened the following year as a horse-drawn tramway. In 1865, five locomotives were bought and the route was largely converted to broad gauge in 1868-9. Standard gauge arrived in 1872.
That year, a Mineral Loop was added to avoid the need for reversing movements at Cinderford.

The section between New Fancy Colliery and Pillowell Siding incorporated a 503-yard single track tunnel at Moseley Green - masonry lined throughout with substantial masonry portals. It benefited from three ventilation shafts, one of which is now capped.

The tunnel was requisitioned as an ammunition store between April 1942 and December 1943 before completely closing to traffic on 13th March 1951. In the Seventies, a short section of the tunnel near its centre was strengthened with rail and timber bracing to help it withstand the forces from traffic passing on the road above. This has though been recently fire-damaged so its effectiveness might have been somewhat compromised.​

Pics​

Middle air shaft on the way to the southern portal

Southern Portal​

Wooden Tunnel Bracing​

Northern Portal​

Thanks for looking​

 

[pigdog]

nice not seen this 1 b4

 

[The Wombat]

Stunning photos mate
that airshaft looks a bit lop sided

 

[ACID- REFLUX]

Nice ones

Not used to seeing single track Tunnels, hopefully easier to illuminate

 

[wellingtonian]

Nice one Lenston. You always light these things up so well.

 

[The Kwan]

Lovely stuff man, you have developed a tunnel fetish...really nice

 

[gas man]

excellent pics as usual lenston,being originally broad gauge could this be another one of brunels?

 

[Will Knot]

Fabulous pic's there mate, looks a great place, nice report. Thanks for sharing

 

[Nickindroy]

Reet corker that.

 

[georgie]

Nice one lenston

You still shooting with the tokina?

 

[Lenston]

Nice one lenston

You still shooting with the tokina?

Cheers all, yeah still on it Georgie

 

[Marsden1002]

Good shots! I bet the bracing was a PITA to get thou!

 

[Fuzzball]

I visited this tunnel and the track bed in the last week after seeing it on an OS map. I didn't know it's name so it was great to check-in here and see this informative report from back in the day! Fantastic to see the interior, lovely pictures!
No access to the tunnel now it seems at either end as the blocks have been re-applied and the other end has a welded sealed door. The entrance to the tunnel on the southern end is interesting externally in it's own right, however. The portal is very impressive, with concrete steps up to the top which I assume were war related. There's the remains of what seem like brick coal sheds or WW2 related additions, perhaps. And the cutting on the approach towards the tunnel looks more like a drained canal due to the narrow trackbed, high stone retaining walls and some random stream which now runs along it. There was one heck of a strong breeze flowing out of the tunnel in the gaps in the breeze blocks. If those wooden supports were now seriously rotting then I'd have imagined the breeze would have been flowing into the tunnel and out of the air shafts, no? I was amazed to smell a lot of what seemed like oil or coal in the air around the portal, too. It's worth a look at if you're in the area. The stone and brick air shafts look imposing too, and very much like the well Samara crawls out of in The Ring.

PS I just found a post by someone called Smiffy on another forum (not sure if I can mention which?) And they wrote this back in 20008: "The little 'sheds' in front of the tunnel were built by the Ministry of Supply in 1940 ish as a guard hut and small canteen for the men working there storing ammunition in the tunnel.....this only lasted a few months though because further up the track (on through the tunnel) was one of the biggest above ground ammo dumps in the UK and the blocking of the tunnel to store more ammo was making the operation of the big dump at Acorn Patch a hassle so the tunnel was emptied and brought back into use."

 

[Lenston]

The oil smell is coming off the wooden support in the middle of the tunnel if I remember rightly.

 

[Fuzzball]

The oil smell is coming off the wooden support in the middle of the tunnel if I remember rightly.

Oh right, was it coated in oil for preservation then?