page_title: Otford railway tunnel
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Otford railway tunnel / History
caption_attribution_description: The 1942/43 section that was blown up by the army, repaired in the '50s
context_page_description: The Otford railway tunnel is a heritage-listed former railway tunnel on the Illawarra railway line at Otford, City of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by the New South Wales Government Railways, and built by W. Rowe and W. Smith and Mr. McDonald. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
context_section_description: The Otford Railway Tunnel was constructed in 1888 by the firm Rowe and Smith, who built 7 of the 8 original tunnels on the Illawarra line from Waterfall to Clifton. The Otford Railway Tunnel, the seventh after Waterfall, was the final major engineering project which permitted the linking up of the northern part of the Illawarra Line to the isolated southern part in 1888. The Otford Railway Tunnel opened on 3 October 1888. The single line connection was made at (old) Stanwell Park Station (now bypassed by the 1915 Stanwell Park Deviation).
  The tunnel was built of brick arched form and when built was the largest and steepest (5,985 feet long - 1824m - and 1 in 40 gradient) on the system.
  Of the 8 original tunnels in the Waterfall to Clifton section of the Illawarra line, the Otford tunnel and the Metropolitan tunnel were notorious for hot and suffocating conditions experienced by the crew of steam trains climbing to Waterfall from Thirroul. There were cases of enginemen burnt by the heat. Due to these conditions, the single line section became an operational bottleneck. To negotiate the steep terrain, train loads were reduced by up to 50% of capacity. This was partly solved in 1891 by building of a brick circular ventilation shaft 7 feet in diameter down 200 feet to the tunnel. Due to the ongoing ventilation problems in the tunnel, the use of electric locomotives in the tunnel was considered, however by 1904 plans for a new set of tunnels (known as the "Helensburgh Deviation") were well advanced, so make-do measures were introduced to minimise the smoke problem. With the use of longer or double headed trains, smoke problems necessitated installation in 1908 of a forced air fan at the northern end of the tunnel.
  In 1915 the Helensburgh deviation was under construction to create a set of new tunnels deviating around the Stanwell Park amphitheatre: the duplicated line was able to fully bypass the Otford tunnel and it was closed on 10 October 1920.
  The Otford Tunnel was subsequently used as a pedestrian access from Otford to Stanwell Park.
  In 1942/43, as part of a war-time explosives programme, the Army detonated a section of roof approximately 1630m to 1643m into the tunnel.
  In 1959 the tunnel was used by Eden Industries to farm mushrooms. The debris created by the 1942/43 explosion was cleared away, and a 13m box-like reinforced concrete section was built to replace the brick walls demolished in the explosion and support the tunnel structure.
  The tunnel was closed for public access in 2000. RailCorp has placed security gates at the southern portal at Stanwell Park to deter vandalism.
caption: The repaired tunnel
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