page_title: Thames Tunnel
section_title: Use as a railway tunnel
hierarchical_section_title: Thames Tunnel / History and development / Use as a railway tunnel
caption_attribution_description: Thames Tunnel walk open day, March 2010
context_page_description: The Thames Tunnel is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in London, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. It measures 35 feet wide by 20 feet high and is 1,300 feet long, running at a depth of 75 feet below the river surface measured at high tide. It is the first tunnel known to have been constructed successfully underneath a navigable river and was built between 1825 and 1843 using Marc Isambard Brunel's and Thomas Cochrane's newly invented tunnelling shield, by Brunel and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
  The tunnel was designed for horse-drawn carriages but instead was used by pedestrians, and became a tourist attraction. In 1869 it was converted into a railway tunnel for use by the East London line which, since 2010, is part of the London Overground railway network under the ownership of Transport for London.
context_section_description: The tunnel was purchased in September 1865 by the East London Railway Company, a consortium of six mainline railways which sought to use the tunnel to provide a rail link for goods and passengers between Wapping (and later Liverpool Street) and the South London Line. The tunnel's generous headroom, resulting from the architects' original intention of accommodating horse-drawn carriages, provided a sufficient loading gauge for trains as well.
  The line's engineer was Sir John Hawkshaw who was also noted, with W. H. Barlow, for the major re-design and completion of Isambard Brunel's long abandoned Clifton Suspension Bridge at Bristol, which was completed in 1864.
  The first train ran through the tunnel on 7 December 1869. In 1884, the tunnel's disused construction shaft to the north of the river was repurposed to serve as Wapping station.
  The East London Railway was later absorbed into the London Underground, where it became the East London Line. It continued to be used for goods services as late as 1962. During the Underground days, the Thames Tunnel was the oldest piece of the Underground's infrastructure.
  It was planned to construct an intersection between the East London Line and the Jubilee Line extension at Canada Water station. As construction would require the temporary closure of the East London Line, it was decided to take this opportunity to perform long-term maintenance on the tunnel and so in 1995 the East London Line was closed to allow construction and maintenance to take place. The proposed repair method for the tunnel was to seal it against leaks by "shotcreting" it with concrete, obliterating its original appearance, causing a controversy that led to a bitter conflict between London Underground who wished to complete the work as quickly and cheaply as possible and architectural interests wishing to preserve the tunnel's appearance. The architectural interests won with the Grade II* listing of the tunnel on 24 March 1995 (the day London Underground had scheduled the start of the long-term maintenance work).
  Following an agreement to leave a short section at one end of the tunnel untreated, and more sympathetic treatment of the rest of the tunnel, the work went ahead and the route reopened – much later than originally anticipated – in 1998. The tunnel closed again from 23 December 2007 to permit tracklaying and resignalling for the East London Line extension. The extension work resulted in the tunnel becoming part of the new London Overground. After its reopening on 27 April 2010, it was used by mainline trains again.
caption: Inside the tunnel, 2010
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