Talk:Bramhope Tunnel

Anyone know this story?
Somewhere I've read a reference to this event as described in the article: "The grand opening was 9 July 1849, but the first train went through on 31 May in the same year, full of Leeds and Thirsk railway officials, and pulled by Bray's locomotive Stephenson." I think I saw another version of the same story maybe ten years ago on a printed brochure rather than in a book; not on the internet. The story went something like this: the first group to ride on the Harrogate line was an assortment of corporate VIPs and bigwigs in stovepipe hats and possibly a few well-dressed ladies. They were probably mostly investors, the mayor of Leeds perhaps, and other businessmen with a direct interest. A contemporary news article apparently stated that the bigwigs complained that the Harrogate line was the worst one they'd ridden on, with its long tunnel and its viaduct. That may seem a silly complaint to us today, but they were in an open carriage and the tunnel drips like billyo. Maybe the low-sided open carriage gave them vertigo on the viaduct? If we can trace this brochure or the source of the story, we could add it to the page.--Storye book (talk) 11:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Extensive edits to this Good Article
Please do not make extensive edits to this Good Article without first discussing it in detail here, with citations. Please keep the discussion here (i.e. not on userpages) so that a consensus may be reached on each detail. Where improvements to syntax, clarification, linking and so on are agreed by consensus, those changes will not be problematic. The problem occurs where there is a large combination of edits over two days, with language copyediting mixed up with content change lacking citations, content change which contradicts citations, and updates with may be consistent with citations. We need to separate these things out and deal with them one at a time. Hence I have reverted the latest massive and complex edit done without consensus, to allow us to begin again and cooperate properly to avoid errors.--Storye book (talk) 11:13, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

One error which we need to avoid, for example, is any change to the function of the sighting tower and the order in which things were done. Firstly, the sighting tower does not do anything - it just sits there. It is the engineers looking from the top of it who do things. Secondly, the sighting tower must be constructed before other work, so the text needs to reflect this order. I.e. you build the sighting tower, the engineers look from the top and give instructions, the tunnel-line is marked, the tunnel is dug. This is obvious enough, so it looks odd if we say that the sighting tower is built and the tunnels dug, as if they are both done at the same time. So this is one of the reasons why the massive edit was reverted. --Storye book (talk) 11:13, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I returned to add some information and see that more than an hour's work has been reverted. I wasn't aware it was a good article. Having just read up on what makes a good article I see that articles can be improved and this one certainly should be or be reassessed. There are so many improvements that discussing each one would be counter-productive. I edited the text, I added nothing that required citations which the reverting editor seems rather hung up on, rather strange in that reference 3 is a doesn't work and reference 10 is a blog. I prefer doing to getting involved in pointless discussion.Esemgee (talk) 13:55, 24 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Just saying you don't want to discuss it is not a solution. You will find that most Good Articles are constantly monitored by editors and administrators. A simple, brief edit is not usually a problem for them to deal with: read then accept or correct. However a very long and complex edit containing mixed helpful and counter-productive material cannot be dealt with, without prior discussion of separate elements and a consensus. Please discuss here before repeating what you did before. Further sudden large and complex edits will be reverted until discussed in full here. Thank you. --Storye book (talk) 17:08, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

As you show no signs of addressing the points I raised, I have added referenced information about the tunnel that strikes me as being important. Sorry if it upsets you but this article is not comprehensive and contains errors. Esemgee (talk) 13:51, 8 July 2014 (UTC) I'm not sure what right you have to remove new referenced information. Perhaps this article should be reassessed. Esemgee (talk) 14:14, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry but I had to revert your edit again. I spent an hour OK, 24 mins, attempting to justify your edit as I did not want to revert, but I just could not justify your changes. Most of the information which you thought you had added was actually information which already appeared e.g. this bit - "The finished tunnel is 2 miles, 243 yd or 2.138 miles (3.441 km) long; 25.5 feet (7.8 m) wide by 25 feet (7.6 m) high. It is a double track tunnel, with a gradient of 1 in 94 (0.01%) down from Horsforth to Arthington and at its deepest point, just to the north of Breary Lane, it is 290 feet (88 m) below the surface." - which is already in the history section. Most of your changes appeared to be just a re-write and re-arrangement of the same material. You also ended up with a spare set of two square brackets and an extra comma which appeared unnecessarily in your saved version. You changed the bit about the landowner wanting to use one of the towers as a belvedere, to him wanting the whole structure as a belvedere - without any citation that I could find to prove your change. If before editing you could just list on this discussion page (a) the new material that you want to add, and (b) the errors which you think you have found in the article - and please desist from unnecessary re-writes and re-arrangement of text - then we can see what we are dealing with and your edits will not be problematic. Thank you. --Storye book (talk) 14:24, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I added the information 24 minutes before you reverted. It contained new information and three new references about the sighting towers, north portal ad retaining walls, ok maybe I moved a bit but to a better place, a description of the actual tunnel, I could have fixed the brackets. If I have to write a list it might as well be reassessed, it certainly isn't Wikipedia's best work. Perhaps you would like to fix the dead link and the blog. Esemgee (talk) 14:33, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I have fixed the blog and dead link. Yes, you're right about 24 mins - it certainly felt like an hour. You didn't move anything, you wrote it again, closely paraphrased. Please write the new information and references here - I tried but could not extract any new stuff when I compared your new edit to the previous one. Please tell me what I missed. --Storye book (talk) 15:18, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

You'll have to do better than that, Grace's guide is a copy of this article and the other contains no information other than a link to this article. The blog is reference 10. Esemgee (talk) 15:19, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I have removed ref #10. It would have helped if you could have explained what you meant in the first place. I am not going to get involved in an edit war with you, so don't try it. Now please explain what is this new material and what are the new references which you want to add? --Storye book (talk) 15:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I added it, you removed it, try reading what you removed, it's all there. Esemgee (talk) 15:36, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I refer you to my previous comments. --Storye book (talk) 16:09, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

You don't read much very thoroughly do you? I had told you about the blog in my first reply in this section. Esemgee (talk) 16:51, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I refer you to my previous comments. --Storye book (talk) 16:55, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Your last four edits of today (one by your username and 3 by your IP) are OK. If you could either let us know here what you intend, or keep it to very simple single edits that we can easily monitor and agree about, that would work. It's the large and complicated edits where useful and non-useful stuff cannot be separated, which cause the problem and need to be reverted so we can start again at the beginning. By the way, you have written "Network rail rail". --Storye book (talk) 17:14, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * @ Esemgee. Thank you for your first four edits of 9 July. This is a group of short edits with multiple saves which can be followed and checked easily. If you can continue in this way, all will be well. However please may I ask you to kindly keep it down to the same kind of small and manageable amount per day, so that you don't see me giving up and re-writing or undoing the whole thing as before? Thanks again. --Storye book (talk) 10:01, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Don't be ridiculous, quite frankly I don't why I should edit to suit you. My computer time is limited. You may edit whatever you like, as may I. Esemgee (talk) 10:05, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I have offered to cooperate, but you have now made it clear that you are not going to. In that case, if you produce extended and complex edits which remove citations, and if you re-word and re-order unnecessarily and include errors of presentation and content, then someone is going to have to undo it all in order to put it right. If you should continue to do that, I shall have to report you to an administrator. --Storye book (talk) 10:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * You have written that the north portal provided accommodation for employees. Where is the citation for that? There are local rumours of it, but I have not yet seen evidence. --Storye book (talk) 10:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

You are the one threatening me if I don't do as you say, I'm not asking you to do anything. I am simply re-adding referenced information that you quite arbitrarily removed, since when has that been a crime? Esemgee (talk) 10:23, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I refer you to my previous comments. For my own records and for information of others monitoring this: I have read and agreed to your first ten edits of today, 9 July, including the removal of the unreferenced bit about accommodation for employees. --Storye book (talk) 10:27, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Whatever your previous comments were I have forgotten them just as you have forgotten you wrote the bit about accommodation for employees. Look back in the history to 15 January. Esemgee (talk) 10:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I made no edit to this article or its talkpage on 15 January in any year. I searched the archive page for 15 January 2014 for "employees" and "accommodation" and found none. --Storye book (talk) 10:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok that was just a page before I edited anything here. Your very first edit to the article History section, "and after it was finished was lived in for a while by railway workers" is what I am referring to. In my world living in is the same as accommodation. Esemgee (talk) 10:54, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you, now I see where it came from. That was temporary, and probably not built as such, or official, or tied-housing, or rented. If you were to look inside (not that one is permitted to, of course), you would see that it might as well have been built as a shed, or maybe a sheltered viewing platform for the landowner. There are no conveniences for human living accommodation. So that is why I questioned your accommodation-for-employees wording, which sounded like intended and/or official living quarters. I have added a citation-needed template. --Storye book (talk) 13:10, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Are you making it up as you go along now? Of course it has no conveniences, it was the middle of the 1800s and conveniences were outside (dig a hole, rural area and all that). The workers would probably have been employed at Arthington Station. I think you should calm down, stop being so precious and get a grip. Yesterday you added a website copied from wikipedia and another linking back to this article. Whether somebody said it was a good article or not, you need to accept the article was lacking information and is not particularly well written, information is strewn across it like confetti. All the tunnel description information should be in a single section, the reader shouldn't be poking around to find it, the social history in another and an early section should have something about the background to the railway, the tunnel's construction and its location.

You appear to have used tertiary sources, a website (now dead) that appears to have been referenced to two books. Most of the dead link contributions seem to have been filtched from these books almost verbatim so surely it is better to use the secondary sources rather than a dead link. I could add them with page numbers but fear being shot down. You have removed one blog but I think is one as well unless you know better. Which leaves no citation for the belvedere (your term) or the likeness on the keystone.

It needs a lot of work but it's impossible to work with someone who is continually defending the rather poor status quo and now my time is up for today.I could fixed it all but wrote this instead. What a waste of time. Esemgee (talk) 14:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I refer you to my previous comments. The difference between purpose-built Victorian rural human accommodation and a shed (or storeroom or viewing platform) is a minimum of the following: a sink with drain hole for use with bucket/bowl on top and below (no tap or drainage though), a window which was originally glazed, and a chimney and hearth. The room in the belvedere has none of that. There is a window but its frame shows that it was never glazed. Therefore it was not built for human accommodation, although of course it could have been used unofficially as a temporary bothy by employees. It probably once had a lockable door, although that is no longer the case.--Storye book (talk) 16:09, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

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