Great Northern Railway Alpine Route

um so we just we just tried to cross this here which looks beautiful green wonderful darren's got you can't see darren's or foot mark that's like a footing off on that easy i mean yeah you got any trousers on my what a nightmare yeah i'm gonna get it again we're sitting again we're gonna try and go back on ourselves i don't think this is gonna be doable down we gotta we gotta get out of here up to there [Music] we [Music] we're trying to work out where the greens are in relation to the t's and vice versa and we think we've just found something out not very exciting let's go [Music] evasive species what's it called pink snapdragon has taken over the area awesome yeah right so we just left that um huge product you've seen there where we started the film today thornton uh viaduct and we're now heading a little bit further south to go and check out a big embankment then we're heading back north and we're going to check out probably about four or five tunnels today so hopefully this is quite an exciting little adventure nice bridge yeah um we also made a chat called darren uh darren runs another little channel which we should talk about later so this is this is what they referred to as the alpine line so we've got quite a spectacular little uh it's only sort of five or six miles that we're doing today but there's a heck of a lot in that five or six miles are you going for rebecca i don't know it's quite steep are there steps it's all good well one of the things i identified on the map just beyond to the south of the fort and viaduct is this massive embankment and i just think to myself well there's a river underneath the embankment so there must be some interesting architect architecture under the embankment so if you ever do see a big embankment on an old map presume at some point they must have got the water underneath it um here's a little bridge first of all which we assume is like a little farm access bridge i guess because there's a pathway up here um but yeah even that in itself like you said it looks like it's just farm access and that's what it's for but it's beautiful it's so well built the top around the top and what's it called that's something else isn't it it's really pretty at this stage in time i don't think i can get to it as to how well the camera is going to see but right down there um right in front of there's a five foot drop down to where the stream is cut through the uh land and it goes under the embankment there so presumably under there there is probably a nice old culvert because it looks unblocked looks in a good condition but we can't get down there because stupidly i've left my blooming uh big boots in the car okay so back up from culver and we're on the hunt for darren now doing we can twist darren's armor to get a bit of cake in the coffee should we give it a go okay i mean he probably speaks the language of the people up here right so is just there just there he's prepared as well he's got his wellies on damn you he almost cried just now because he hasn't got his well he's on because he went down yeah it's down everybody we'll tell you more about darren's channel in a little bit for the time being coffee and cake oh yeah please let's do it [Music] we're putting pressure on down because we're sending down we need all the information about this line we don't need all the information about islam great northern i want to say northern yeah right now we've got queensberry in the background you've just heard sorry there's pokemon i'm not queensbury behind me so down what line are we on it's the great northern line which run all the way from halifax and right through to keithley which is quite a few miles further up not keeley not keeley keithley or it's southerners [Laughter] [Music] that's a deep cutting right so we're um very well well heads southern portal yes which is the first uh tunnel we've come to along this five mile stretch we're doing today and we're faced with like pretty much a sheer drop i'm going to call that there's no embankment there's a sheer drop sudden death yeah so we're not going down there this is probably this is the only end is uncovered but we can't even see it from here [Music] well this is this is rather beautiful so ahead of us we're going to have an embankment we can probably have a look at the culvert we're going to have a let's see if we can find the wells head northern portal and of course we've got the short then home down there we think this this side is is buried but it's worth a look anyway because they reckon someone you say someone stole the um apparently somebody's pinched the stonework from porter that's it yeah and so it collapsed and it's just basically buried itself right so all right well said northern portal uh here we come let's try stamp on them [Applause] a little stream with ballast i feel like we've walked like 200 meters but we've probably walked about 20 meters yeah oh left or right wow all this for a potentially blocked up portal we've got to be very careful as our footing because it's getting soggy and soggy we're going to try and go back on ourselves i don't think this is going to be doable down we've got we've got to get out of here up to there well heads tunnel is a no-go certainly this end you ain't gonna get there until unless you've got some rope work to abseil down the end right we're now in the middle embankment uh we're looking for the downstairs of farmers uh like a little tunnel um and probably a culvert too then we're going to have a look at the tunnel up there which is then home tunnel and that's the beautiful thing is that and i assume it's got underneath it yeah underneath so farm access beautiful bridge and underneath that we've got the culvert for the water literally underneath that um we're going to scale this aren't we down try and try so under there um it's all bricklined as well it's got an arch sort of inverted arch underneath [Music] downhill southern portal the ground is already a little bit firmer at the moment compared to uh well heads northern portal all right let me talk to it again so we're gonna we have a look in denholm tunnel southern pool you can see it's open station the other side 150 yards it looks on a slight curve we think we can see the other end because there's a bit of light coming from it so there's obviously access of some kind the air is pretty thick according to mr graham but we're going to have a gander inside okay it's very humid it's quite muddy underfoot yeah i've got a funny feeling there are at some places some catch pits it might not be the same i might have the next tunnel but either way easy on the footing right straight away 20 yards in and we've got a very nice recess recess that is probably the original brickwork i'm like the last one um i need to look up because to me everything there looks really good condition really really good there's no spawning anything it says mason along the side [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right we've we we've just taken this this is silly about 20 minutes to get this last bit of tunnel from the other end and we've just come out this door here to see this swamp oh we got to get back on down yeah [Music] right so we've just um come from denim tunnel no yeah don't hold it yeah don't tell we come over top um we're now on the site of then home station home station yeah and i mean where are we this is a big old site which makes sense so station in front of us the station was on the far side over there right in front of us yeah and then you had a large good shed down the bottom side over there [Music] right and to the right of the good shed we'd have seen the tunnel door parked on we're not gonna we're not gonna get it from here we're gonna try and draw over the top to where you can access the pathways and where there's two more cutting covers potentially so potentially three more tunnels to come in a very short gap so we're now north of den holm station right down yeah and we're not really sure where we're gonna end up first are we just kind of we're gonna head somewhere to the middle and then see what's available between the station and here there's three tunnels at some point yes i just need to find them so i think one tunnel is a tunnel and i want to say the other two are it kind of covers the wrong word we've walked down there so we're here so we think if you can see us on the camera we think there's a footbridge there we think tunnel there we think cutting cover there darren is just looking to see where the other car covers so where the bridge is up there yeah there's two tunnels oh this could have been the cotton cover or the filling in oh that's the bridge just up there you're right and we're here now right we're right on top of a tunnel so we're actually on the this is nuts we're actually on top of the railway line up and we thought this was the embankment yeah oh thank god you got burning it's filled in there yeah well i've never seen anything like this before really i mean there it is so we we were we were stood on there and we're thinking it's an embankment and it's a tunnel i guess i mean how would you build this they line it first i guess and then just cover it in mud because it's literally that is the archway there you're that really loud cow yes it's a ball okay it just appeared behind me i was that's like you see it's behind you breathing down [Music] yep [Music] this is the has to be the craziest design tunnel we've ever been in 100 yards 130 140 yards that's a guess i probably had the information somewhere i'm gonna bounce across to that there there we go oh look at that look at that i was just a drainage into the tunnel very strange isn't it right so no no i can finally see no recesses at all very sturdy underfoot so far right so that is um the biggest of the two sort of purpose built tunnels isn't it they don't have names today i don't think they're just yeah so we've got we're going further south now to the other short tunnel and then see if we see the northern portal then [Music] [Music] well hit wells head yep which was not successful then then home tunnel then down home which was successful in the station then the station which was successful then doe park which is that one doe park which is ahead of us and obviously we've done the curtain cover there and lo and behold right ahead of us here is this little butte now that there is another and i keep calling it cut and cover because it essentially is um why was it built okay so to briefly answer my own question these are inverted tunnels rather than cut and cover they have an archway on the top as you can see but they also have an archway underneath the what would have been the railway itself this is to essentially stop water ingress from the sides and also to stop the embankment falling in so really this is isn't for any sort of boring effort as you would imagine with a normal tunnel to go for a hill this is to stop um the sides falling in on the railway itself so we're now at the northern um portal the den home station tunnel and again we've got the lovely curved brickwork on the outside facing us we've got a door i don't know if it's open or not but we'll have a look right so we've had a successful little trip so far and we've got one more thing to do what one more thing have we got to do well there's another viaduct right further down i like sound yeah i'm told it's more impressive than the thornton one and thornton's very impressive we didn't get our drone out on the thornton specifically because you said this one is going to be even more impressive because if i i'm saying by doctors right next to you right okay well we're looking forward [Music] [Music] [Music] so we're just discussing this last bit of the line um so the line goes off to the north now as it has been obviously snakes around to the right and a bit more north and then goes into the last tunnel leaves leaves more 333 yeah look at it look at graham's website for that he's got a lot of pictures from inside and he got permission to go in there i believe guy that owns a caravan company stores caravans in there yeah interesting place so we started on a viaduct and we ended and we've ended on a video did you want to come to this side of that i think then we can kind of pan like that we sell that well right but what a lovely day the weather the sun's just come out all of a sudden but it's been a beautiful day really successful big thanks to darren for showing us around dan what's your youtube channel where should people go what should they do uh adventure me on youtube and uh similar to paul's bit of history canals railways all the usual probably a bit deer we always say probably more detail than us but um very thorough research and thorough you don't miss much in terms of when you're tracking along a line do you so do go and watch um watch this channel subscribe we'll put the link in the description and we'll also put in a pinned comment because you guys never read the description you always really pin comment um right we shall um we shall see you very soon i am sure uh thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Paul and Rebecca Whitewick

Views: 29,447

Keywords: abandoned tunnel, disused tunnel, disused railway, disused station, abandoned railway, viaduct, Whitewick, AdventureMe, Whitewicks, The Whitewick's, The Alpine Line, Great Northern Railway, Thorton Viaduct, Hewenden Viaduct, doe park tunnel, well heads tunnel, wilseden station, Thornton station, Denholme station, Denholme tunnel

Id: 1SppVqwX2NM

Length: 19min 36sec (1176 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2020