We've been here in Australia for nine months now and loving it. Unfortunately there are very few tunnels! Only two here in South Australia and both are well and truly locked as they are used for wine storage.

Adelaide is a beautiful city but there is not enough work here to keep me interested(!) so I am off to Melbourne. I'm going to get in touch with 'Dave' at the imaginatively named wine storage facilty and ask if I can have a look inside before I go. If not I'll at least visit the portals and put some pics on here. It will be a couple or three months before I get to Melbourne and I am not likely to get the site properly updated until I'm there.

As for TunnelsOz.com, I've abandoned it as there are not enough tunnels here to make it worthwhile, any I do here will just have to be added to an Aussie section on this site.

The tunnel database has not progressed any further. My 22 year old tunnels ring binder is still sat by my computer holding on to its secrets and waiting for me to type it up and get the info on here!

I had intended this to be the premier UK site about railway tunnels but two things have scuppered me: one is that I am simply not finding the time to dedicate to the site and the other is that Mr. Bickerdike has already claimed the crown with his excellent site Forgotten Relics so I will relegate myself to mainly recording my own exploits though if you want to see your own site visit or research (or whatever!) featured on here then please get in touch. Oh, and I do still intend to get my UK disused tunnels database up on here if I ever get my arse in gear!

This page will eventually become a 'proper' homepage with 'news', 'features', 'your contributions', and other such typical fare! For now it is effectively the TunnelsUK Blog and will move to a separate blog area when I get the 'proper' homepage sorted. Other sections planned include: 'tunnels I've visited', 'tunnel datasheets', 'tunnel bibliographies' plus the odd non-tunnel related section such as 'html v xhtml', 'html and css tips', 'why the UK Signalling industry is stuck in the mire', 'the case (or at least my case) for nationalisation', 'a Rail Engineer's guide to misinterpreting health and safety legislation' and much, much more..!

This site was going to be dedicated to the cataloguing, discussion and exploration of rail tunnels in the UK - but now I don't know if I have the time!! I may just use it to record my site visits as well as including the database - we'll see how it goes.

This will eventually be the homepage! For now the limited, but growing, action is all on the Site Visits page which will eventually contain live links to detailed reports of our tunnel exploration trips as well as special features.

I also intend to include the most comprehensive UK Tunnel Database (bear with me!) available. There are several claims to this on the internet and one or two on CD but none are as extensive as ours with the possible exception of Nigel Callaghan's. Much respect to Nigel! His site explorations over many years are extensive, very detailed and are a valuable resource in confirming the existence and status of many tunnels. EDIT (Dec 2009) - an interloper arrived on the scene when I wasn't looking (not really, they just beat me to it)! Forgotten Relics listed just a few tunnels when I started this site but they obviously have more time on their hands than me as they have developed much more quickly! It is already by far the best tunnel (and viaduct) site on the web. I believe the guy who runs it is one Graeme Bickerdike who you’ll probably remember from such TV favourites as 'Debbie's Business' and 'Bomb Squad'. His website is beautifully designed and the content is spot on, but then he does have a media company behind him – no animosity or jealousy on my part... honest! But seriously, folks, his site is brilliant - Go see.

My friend and I began researching tunnels independently of each other twenty years ago after a trip to Woodhead focussed our interest from general closed railway exploration to 'tunnelism'! Two or three years later the fact that we had both compiled lists of over 1000 tunnels without the other knowing came up in conversation and we immediately arranged a get together to compare notes. A long weekend was spent in my friend’s front room in Leicester in 1990 – the result was a list of over 1500 open and closed tunnels in the UK.

At this point I foolishly decided to become a respectable member of society and got a job and girlfriend! I threw myself into the work and consequently the next phase of tunnel crankery after information collection, i.e. exploration, was put on hold. Fortunately, my friend remained happily devoid of employment and continued to fine-tune the list. He methodically went about clearing up discrepancies, confirming (or otherwise) 'possible' tunnels, putting OS Map References to the bulk of the tunnels, etc...

My interest was renewed a few years ago but I still have the same job and girlfriend, with the addition of two young children, so exploration opportunities are a rare treat! I have now 'done' just over 200 closed tunnels so am, compared to Nigel, Birdie, etc, a beginner!

There are many 'tunnelists' out there who have done excellent research, for example Birdie's Glasgow Maps do an excellent job of making sense of one of the UKs most tunnel-pierced cities. Follow the link and read through the Forum to see the maps and get a feel for the story...

As well as tunnel cranks there is a large body of general rail exploration research available on the internet. A good example is the 'Britain's Lost Railways' group on Yahoo where Ralph Rawlinson is a prominent poster (and Nigel Callaghan turns up occasionally too).

Finally, there are the general urbex and underground exploration groups and sites. The oldest and most respected is Subterranea Britanicca. Formed in the 1970's by Nick Catford, this is now the UK's most prominent exploration organisation. Membership is available and if anyone can swing a visit to Woodhead's old bores, its them - I don't know if you're reading, Nick, but if you manage it, please give me a shout!!!

Other sites containing useful tunnel exploration information include 28 Days Later, Lost Railways West Yorkshire, Cardiffrail, The Urban Exploration Web-Ring, Darkplaces.co.uk, www.souterrains.org, Trackbed.com, Silentuk.com, Underground Kent, Davros.org.

I will better sort my links when I get up and running properly; for now, enjoy this lot but don't forget to come back to TunnelsUK.com.

S Power (Oct 2008)