Great Western Coffee Shop

I note that the Two Tunnels Cycleway was first opened 10 years ago today - https://www.twotunnels.org.uk . Congratulations to the team who worked so hard to make this possible, some of whom are members here.   It's a wonderful day out / walk / ride through the old Devonshire and Combe Down tunnels, and the section of the Somerset and Dorset from Bath though to Midford. I've done it several times and MUST do to again

Blinkin' flip.....10 years already?  I remember chatting with the entrance staff at Bath's NT Prior Park property who told me about it as it was due to open shortly.  I've done it a few times since, most memorably on my second or third visit when I went with my brother but didn't tell him about the "surprise" in the longer tunnel....well, why spoil it?

A memorable experience and one I recommend to friends - and a big THANK YOU to those who worked so hard to make it happen. You know who you are.  ;D

And now, 11 year anniversary today, for good measure it falls on a Saturday.

A couple of photos: one of the opening day crowds, and another of ex S&D footplate crew John Sawyer and Tim Hughes (who had a Bath Junction to Midford token pouch on his arm). Alas, Devonshire Tunnel is still closed for the time being, an... issue... with the tunnel drain still needs addressing.

Mark

(https://i.postimg.cc/Njn2mmq1/two-tunnels-opening-day-crowds.jpg)

(https://i.postimg.cc/76ZLRLkx/tim-hughes-john-sawyer-two-tunnels-opening-day-1000.jpg)

I don't feel the current situation is going to change soon

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-tunnel-closed-again-due-flooding-307683 (https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-tunnel-closed-again-due-flooding-307683)

Am interested how they managed to do it despite English Nature Natural England shouting BATS (as opposed to Great Crested Newts). Another former railway tunnel in Wales has gone ahead despite the Welsh equivalent playing the bats card, although it is shut part of the year during the bat breeding season.

The South Downs National Park are going through all sorts of contortions over the tunnels on the Chichester - Midhurst line, alternative suggestions hardly suitable for manual wheelchair users who are not paralympians. Is it a case that BANES was prepared to face down English Nature and a National Park feel they can't.

UPDATE: correct name of quango

Browsing YouTube, as I do for some light relief, I (metaphorically) stumbled across this item about the Bath Two Tunnels Greenway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsstz_RdRYA

From the excellent Paul Whitewick, just over 13 minutes: well worth watching.

CfN.  ;)

12 years ago.  Wow.

Can someone please confirm the current (April 2025) status after engineering issues that have arisen which inevitably have lead to periods of restriction and closure

The Devonshire Tunnel flooding issue is hopefully addressed with a system the installation of which took a good few months. The existing drain, which still copes for much of the time, is now backed up by a chamber beneath the tarmac at the entrance to the tunnel: an increase in levels in the chamber triggers an electric pump in the chamber that sends excess water to a filtration tank at the top of the rise, from where it is taken downhill and off the route and into the street drainage system. We'd expect the pump to be called on only very occasionally.

Meanwhile, further along the route, for the last several months there has been a large puddle across the route where... the tunnel drain there, showing a sense of humour (not) has part-blocked. Not ideal but the puddle can be evaded at one side. This drain has done this before - and there's still a healthy flow into the stream where it emerges so all is not lost.

Something I'm not sure I dreamed and perhaps someone else can remember - visiting the tunnel in the late seventies(?), I found that the cutting there was obstructed some way between its start and the tunnel entrance by a large earth ramp crossing it at an angle, something I thought to be  connected with the construction of a pipeline. At the time I thought "That's it as far as the continuity of the route goes, as that looks as if its there for good". At the next visit, it had vanished as if it had never been there. If it did exist it would have been removed again as it blocked access to what was now Wessex Water's tunnel.

Something else: the audiovisual artwork in the tunnel... is not working again, and we have an enquiry in as to when it will be fixed. That aside, the Two Tunnels route's hopefully reliably available for use

Mark

(https://i.postimg.cc/VNbLBNmy/combe-down-tunnel-south-looking-out-puddle-1000.jpg)

Repeating that to highlight it,  and thank you.  I plan to walk it later this month - today was tempting but I would be pushed for time with the last 4 trains this evening cancelled (sarcastic Thank You, GWR!!) and no evening buses being a Sunday.

That's another cycle ride I might try, next time I happen to find myself somewhere in the Melksham area.  ;)