Summit Tunnel

Summit Tunnel in England is one of the world's oldest railway tunnels. It was constructed between 1838 and 1841 by the Manchester and Leeds Railway Company to provide a direct line between Leeds and Manchester. When built, Summit Tunnel was the longest railway tunnel in the world.

The tunnel, between Littleborough and Walsden near Todmorden, was bored beneath the Pennines, a natural obstruction to most forms of traffic. The tunnel is just over 1.6 miles long and carries two standard-gauge tracks in a single horseshoe-shaped tube, approximately 7.2 metres wide and 6.6 metres high. Summit Tunnel was designed by the civil engineer Thomas Longridge Gooch, assisted by Barnard Dickinson. Progress on the tunnel’s construction was slower than anticipated, largely because the excavation process was more difficult than anticipated. On 1 March 1841, Summit Tunnel was officially opened by Sir John Frederick Sigismund Smith; it had cost of £251,000 and 41 workers had lost their lives.