Queensbury Tunnel

Evocative images taken at the mouth of Victorian Britain's longest train tunnel

A forbidding wall of steam proves no deterrent to an express train entering what was then Britain's longest rail tunnel, moments before a goods train exits. This evocative Victorian film was one of many to exploit the filmic potential and public appetite for images of steam travel.

Built in the mid-1870s by Great Northern Railways, the Queensbury Tunnel was a triumph of Victorian engineering, burrowing through over a mile of Pennine rock to establish a railway connection between Halifax and Bradford and Keighley. These images were taken at the Northern end of the tunnel by the Yorkshire-based production company Riley Brothers. The Queensbury Tunnel was taken out of commission in 1956 and now lies derelict. In 2014 a local campaign was launched to rebuild the tunnel as a cycle route.