Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 3, 2011

The Bramhope Tunnel is a railway tunnel 2.138 mi long, owned by Network Rail on a route currently operated mainly by Northern Rail. It was constructed during 1845–1849 on the Harrogate Line, carrying rural and commuter passengers between Horsforth and Weeton in West Yorkshire, England. It is notable for its length, for its crenellated north portal, which is Grade II listed, and for the deaths of 24 men during its construction, commemorated in Otley churchyard with a castellated replica of the north portal. It was constructed by Thomas Grainger, engineer and James Bray, overseer, who set up two sighting towers and then twenty shafts along the line of the tunnel. Men dug horizontally from these shafts until the diggings joined up in 1848. Thousands of navvies lived locally in bothies with their families, and dug in dangerous and wet conditions to facilitate the grand opening in 1849.