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Daylighting a tunnel is to remove its "roof" of overlying rock and soil, exposing the railway or roadway to daylight and converting it to a railway or roadway cut. Tunnels are often daylighted to improve vertical or horizontal clearances—for example, to accommodate double-stack container trains or electrifying rail lines, where increasing the size of the tunnel bore is impractical.

List of daylighted tunnels

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (March 2015)

• Australia
  • The Moocomonga Tunnel carried the Central Western railway line through the Gogango Range in Queensland, Australia (23°42′06″S 149°55′27″E / 23.70164°S 149.92430°E / -23.70164; 149.92430 (Moocomonga railway tunnel)). It opened in 1876. The tunnel was daylighted in 1983 due to rock falls which blocked the tunnel from time to time.
  • The Coromandel and Pinera Tunnels on the Belair line in Adelaide, South Australia, both built as a single track tunnel with the line in 1883, were daylighted in the 1920s when the line to Belair was duplicated.
  • The Arncliffe Tunnel on the NSW South Coast Line was daylighted and replaced with a road bridge when the track was quadruplicated in 1921
  • The Waterfall Tunnel on the NSW South Coast Line was daylighted in 1914 when the line was duplicated.
• New Zealand
  • The railway line through the Manawatū Gorge, when constructed in 1891, had five tunnels. Three of these(Tunnels No. 3, 4 and 5) were daylighted in 2008 to allow for the carriage of large containers (the other two tunnels had their floors lowered).
  • The Macgregor Tunnel on the Main South Line was daylighted in 1971 to allow for container freight.
  • Tunnels No. 22 and 23. were daylighted in 1981 and 1979 respectively on the Main North Line.
  • The Mercer Tunnel was daylighted in 1956 on the North Island Main Trunk.
  • The Makohine Tunnel was daylighted in 1984 on the North Island Main Trunk.
  • The Kiwi Tunnel was daylighted in 1972 on the North Island Main Trunk. This alignment has since been bypassed in 1985 however.
• United Kingdom
  • Liverpool Lime Street station was originally approached through a 1.13-mile (1.82 km) twin-track tunnel completed in 1836. The tunnel was daylighted in the 1880s, and replaced with a deep four-track cutting, with only the eastern 50 metres (55 yd) approaching Edge Hill railway station remaining as a tunnel.

• United States of America
  • Auburn Tunnel on the Schuylkill Canal, daylighted in 1857
  • Tunnel No. 5 on the Alaska Railroad's Seward-Anchorage line
  • Tunnel No. 5 on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad at Nevada S.R. 341 near Virginia City
  • The Gwynedd Cut on the North Pennsylvania Railroad, near North Wales, Pennsylvania, built as a tunnel between 1853 and 1856, daylighted in 1930 when the Reading Railroad electrified the line
  • A number of tunnels were open cut for the National Gateway project including:
    • Shoo Fly Tunnel (2012)
    • Pinkerton Tunnel (2012)
    • Benford Tunnel (2012)

See also

• Daylighting (streams)

References

1. "Duaringa (front)" (Map). Queensland Government. 1943. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
2. "ROCKHAMPTON". Morning Bulletin. Vol. LXIV, no. 11, 650. Queensland, Australia. 4 April 1903. p. 5. Retrieved 25 April 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
3. "On the Northern Railway". The Brisbane Courier. Vol. XXXIII, no. 3, 461. Queensland, Australia. 21 June 1878. p. 3. Retrieved 25 April 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
4. "The Morning Bulletin, ROCKHAMPTON". Morning Bulletin. Vol. XXIII, no. 3495. Queensland, Australia. 25 June 1879. p. 2. Retrieved 25 April 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
5. "A Banana Tree Growing Vigorously in the Wet – Joh Bjelke-Petersen and the Queensland Railways 1960s to 1980s: Part 2". Under The Clocks. 2021-12-07. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
6. "Pinera Tunnel", Misplaced Pages, 2024-06-04, retrieved 2024-08-20
7. "Arncliffe Tunnel". www.nswrail.net. Retrieved 2024-09-01.
8. "Waterfall Tunnel". www.nswrail.net. Retrieved 2024-09-01.
9. The Encyclopedia of New Zealand: Daylighting a Manawatū Gorge tunnel
10. ^ "NZR Tunnels - Railway Knowledge Base for New Zealand". rkbnz.nz. Retrieved 2024-10-04.
11. F. C. Weeks et al., "Tunnel 'Daylighting' on the Alaska Railroad," Transportation Research Record No. 1119, Geotechnology (1987).

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