#1651 Saturday 16 September

This morning was Kaylia's sleep-in morning ..... it was 10am before she stirred!  After breakfast we all went to "the tunnel" ......  although we always direct visitors to the spot, I had never been there myself!




Here we are Kaylia ... Sverrin and Nita





Poor Kaylia did NOT want to go on the walk .... she has been many times

The walk is through beautiful country.  As usual I am amazed by the magnitude of the engineering ..... it was constructed at a time when there were no machines .... no bulldozers or scrapers or dump trucks.  It was all moved by hand and horse.  Yet look at the size of this embankment!

Swan View Tunnel was built on an alignment which replaced the original Eastern Railway passing through Smiths Mill, (now Glen Forrest), and Mundaring. The project to build the new line, including the Swan View Tunnel, was managed by the Engineer-in-Chief of the Western Australian Government Railways, C Y O'Connor. Work began in 1894, with the two bores meeting on 18 April 1895. The tunnel opened on 22 February 1896.  The unstable nature of the jointed granite, along with clay seams, caused difficulties during construction of the tunnel. A masonry-lined face prevented rock falls, but reduced the inner diameter.
The tunnel's small diameter combined with the steep gradient (1:49) to cause smoke accumulation. Incidents involving near-asphyxiation of train crews started in 1896, and continued throughout the tunnel's operating life.  The first serious incident of this nature was in 1903.
The tunnel is 13 chains (858 ft, 262m) long.

Garratt steam locomotive



The tunnel's design was incompatible with the ASG class Garratt steam locomotives used by the Western Australian Government Railways in the 1940s. The worst accident in the tunnel was on 5 November 1942, when both drivers and firemen were asphyxiated by carbon monoxide, one driver dying, when a fully laden double-header train passed through the tunnel at walking pace.

The railway line through the tunnel was lifted after the closing of the older and steeper Eastern Railway and the opening of the Avon Valley diversion that opened in February 1966.

 That extract is from Wikipedia.

I had no idea of the existence of the tunnel .... it was operating in my lifetime!  I can clearly remember the construction of the Avon Valley line while I was at high school in Northam 64 to 69.   Note CY O'Connor ... what a brilliant man ....... he has been a key person in WA history.








 Kaylia wanted a drinking straw for her coffee .... and supplies are running low .... so I asked her to put it on the shopping list.