The Bristol Railway Archive

There's a big write up about the reopening of this railway in todays (19.4.05) Bristol Evening Post. Some pics of the people involved too. (bet they cringed while having them taken... 'just pretend to have a look at that pipe for a second..' )

God, I remember that hell hole vividly - as kids we used to climb over the railings at the top and decend into the inky dark, smelly depths with a bike lamp or something just as useless. It had been converted into air raid shelters during WW2. The tunnel was sectioned with a staiway on either side
and these stairs went straight down, no landings - there seemed to be zillions of them. One night, a tramp who had taken up residence there suddenly popped out of one of the sections, I guess about half way down, and started to roar and shout obscenities at us .... needless to say we legged back to the top as if Satan himself had materialised and, indeed, it might just as well have been Satan as far as we knew .... !!!!

70023VENUS wrote:One night, a tramp who had taken up residence there suddenly popped out of one of the sections, I guess about half way down, and started to roar and shout obscenities at us .... needless to say we legged back to the top as if Satan himself had materialised and, indeed, it might just as well have been Satan as far as we knew .... !!!!

LOL! That's what it was like for me when, as a lad, me and my mates would dare each other to walk through Redcliffe Tunnel.

I always remember one particular day we were creeping along when it dawned on us that we could here a ticking sound. A whispering session later we discovered that none of us had a watch.... suddenly some old bloke jumps out the shadows... arms flailing, mouth wailing, shouting obcenities at the top of his voice...

We were pretty well much the same as we legged it in the opposite direction!

Yeay !!
Nice one. I can honestly say I couldn`t have had a better time as a kid growing up in anywhere except Bristol in the Sixties. Brilliant, loved it !!!

In case you're wondering Pete, this is 70023 "Venus", a British Railways Standard 7P "Britannia" class pacific.

Or to you, a kettle

James wrote:In case you're wondering Pete, this is 70023 "Venus", a British Railways Standard 7P "Britannia" class pacific.

I'd worked that out actually

I was worried by that ID at first though. What with all that porno spam we had to keep fighting on here!

Yes, as the Britannia class pacifics were named after famous porn stars

James wrote:Yes, as the Britannia class pacifics were named after famous porn stars

that would have quite a cool idea !

*cough* lets change the subject before we get moderated!

He he, nice pic of No23 !!! Only ever got one of her in the pouring rain, 6am in the morning at Blackpool South in the middle of winter ...

Have you noticed - this has gone completely off topic .... !!!!!

Bringing it back on topic....

The story has made it to the Evening Post's website:

http://tinyurl.com/exd6v