Shildon Tunnel
Northern portal of Shildon Tunnel | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Other name(s) | Prince of Wales Tunnel |
| Line | Tees Valley Line |
| Location | Shildon, County Durham, England |
| Coordinates | 54°38′10″N 1°38′42″W / 54.636°N 1.645°W |
| OS grid reference | NZ232262 |
| Status | Open |
| Operation | |
| Work begun | 1839 |
| Opened | 10 January 1842 19 April 1842 (to traffic) |
| Owner | Network Rail |
| Technical | |
| Length | 1,220 yards (1,120 m) |
| No. of tracks | 1 |
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge |
Shildon railway map | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shildon Tunnel is a railway tunnel on the Tees Valley line between Shildon, and Bishop Auckland in County Durham, England. Although designed to have two tracks, the line is single-track through the tunnel and on to Bishop Auckland. It was opened out in 1842 by the Shildon Tunnel Company to avoid a railway incline over the 100-foot (30 m) hill that the tunnel bores through, and later sold outright to the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR). By at least 1880 rolling stock was wider and the tunnel could not accommodate two trains passing through at the same time; the two tracks were reduced to a single track in 1967 after many years of single-train occupancy.