This is a list of road, railway, waterway, and other tunnels in the United Kingdom.
A tunnel is an underground passageway with no defined minimum length, though it may be considered to be at least twice as long as wide. Some government bodies define a tunnel as 150 metres (0.093 mi) in length or longer.[1]
A tunnel may be for pedestrians or cyclists, for general road traffic, for motor vehicles only, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some are aqueducts, constructed purely for carrying water—for consumption, for hydroelectric purposes or as sewers—while others carry other services such as telecommunications cables. There are even tunnels designed as wildlife crossings for European badgers and other endangered species.
The longest tunnel in the United Kingdom is the Northern line at 27,800 metres (91,200 ft). This will be superseded in the 2020s by the 37,600-metre (123,400 ft) Woodsmith Mine Tunnel in North Yorkshire that will transport polyhalite from North Yorkshire to a port on Teesside.[2] Standedge Tunnel at 5,029 metres (3.125 mi) is the longest canal tunnel in the United Kingdom. When completed in the late 2020s, the Chiltern tunnel will be the 2nd longest mainline railway tunnel in the UK at 16,040 metres (52,620 ft).[3]
- ^ "Design Manual for Roads and Bridges - CD 352 - Design of road tunnels". Standards for Highways. March 2020. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
For the purposes of this document a road tunnel is defined as a subsurface highway structure enclosed for a length of 150m, or more, measured along the centre line of the soffit.
- ^ Whipple, Tom (13 April 2019). "Colossal bore gets priest's blessing to dig a giant tunnel at Yorkshire Mine". The Times. No. 72820. p. 22. ISSN 0140-0460.
- ^ "Bouygues Travaux Publics - Project - HS2, High-Speed Rail Line". www.bouygues-tp.com. Retrieved 12 August 2021.