Talk:Box Tunnel
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This needs to be pinned down as either true or false -- after all, it's a simple mattter of fact. Unless we can find an expert, I say we send a delegation of Wikipedians to camp out in situ! ;-) -- Tarquin 17:31 Sep 30, 2002 (UTC)
- As I said on Talk:Isambard Kingdom Brunel, I'm not hanging around in the middle of a high-speed railway line at any time of the day or year. Angus Buchanan, whom I quote in the article, is Emeritus Professor of the History of Technology at Bath, and is presumably contactable there. If you have access to an academic library, you may be able to read the correspondence in NCE that Buchanan mentions. I think one page I passed by while googling the question implied that the light shining down the tunnel would be murky at best with the diesel fumes (can't find it now). http://chemcomm1.clic.ac.uk/ticket_holders/b.html includes someone who claims to have seen the effect. Two things are certain: there's no proof that IKB did it deliberately, and the alignment of the tunnel is roughly in the right direction. --rbrwr
- I've done a few back-of-the-envelope calculations, with help from Heavens Above and other sources, and I think that the sun must shine down the tunnel on one day or another in (approximately) the second week of April. Whether it is usually (or even ever) on the 9th, I don't know. Is there an astronomer in the house? --rbrwr
I'm not convinced. Partly because I've heard some academic whose name I wish I could remember saying it's a myth. Partly because it just smells of myth. And most of all -- if it's really true, why has no-one produced a photograph of it? -- Tarquin 18:19 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)
- I wish you could remember his name, too. Excellent question on the photograph, though. Here's one (alleged) answer and here's another. It might be worth searching out a collection of NCE. On the other hand this one gives a published source saying that it happens about a week later. Not that I believe anything I read on Usenet, y'know... --rbrwr 18:58 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)
It was one of the lunchtime lectures I used to sometimes traipse along to when I was at University College London -- he was probably from the civil engineering department. Those usenet links are very tantalising...! -- Tarquin
A visit to Bristol reference library has left me none the wiser:
William Adams (ed) Encylopaedia of the great Western Railway ISBN 1-85260-329-1 says:
- One of the two days in the year when the rising sun shines through the straight tunnel bore is close to Brunel's birthday, but does not coincide with it, despite the legend.
Muriel V. Searle Down the Line to Bristol ISBN 0-85936-188-8 quotes a contemporary source from 1842:
- On Saturday the Box Tunnel presented a most splendid though singular appearance caused by the shining of the sun straight through it, and giving the walls a brilliancy, to use the expression of an eyewitness, "as though the whole tunnel had been made gilt."
April 9, 1842 was indeed a Saturday, though it's not clear that that is the day being referred to.
O.S. Nock Great Western in Colour ISBN 0-7137-0857-3 repeats the story without any proof, which isn't very useful to us. The newer edition of the Guinness Book of Railway Facts and Feats doesn't mention Box.
--rbrwr 15:27 Oct 6, 2002 (UTC)
- At least this remembers that it would happen twice a year. It's often said it happens only on IKB's birthday, which is obviously false. (BTW, going by the analemma on my wee globe, the other day would be Sep 5, more or less.) Kwantus 23:03, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)
Jeremy Clarkson, in his Great Britons programme on IKB, said that the "latest research" shows the effect is visible on April 6 - the only thing on the British railway network that arrives early. It's still just a rumour, though. --rbrwr
I went to the library of the UWE in Bristol and searched their collection of the New Civil Engineer as far back as 1992 without finding the photograph referred to here. Oh well, keep looking. --rbrwr
I've done the calculations, and the sun definately does not shine through the tunnel on his birthday. And it's not as simple as him omitting atmoshperic refraction either. I'm looking to finish an article that probably won't be published anywhere. If it is, I'll point to it from this article. Peter Maggs 17:09, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
To quote from the article, "the sun subtends an angle of about half a degree, which is more than the year to year variation" (referring to the azimuth of the rising Sun on any particular day).
I can confirm this is the case. Using SkyMap Pro, an obsessively accurate astronomical program that takes account of many factors including precession and atmospheric effects, I plotted positions for the rising Sun on 9 April 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. By graphically superimposing the four parallel tracks swept by the Sun's visible disc, it becomes evident that all four intersect, consistently sweeping a central band about 15 minutes of arc wide.
I have I diagram, which I am happy to share with anyone who wants to see it.
The linked post asserting that the birthday effect is impossible is plainly wrong. In my opinion, it should be more firmly dismissed in the text, and the repeated reference to it in the "External Links" section should be removed. Lycanthrope 21:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Secret Tunnel... Conspiracy?
Am I the only one that considers the latter part of this article to be something of a conspiracy? Especially the end which basically equates to: "... which totally obscure the view of the tunnel".
While this might be fact, why is this relevant other than to support a conspiracy theory? Just wondering if this is acceptable or otherwise Worley-d 23:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- I see what your saying but it is actually true. Inside box tunnel is a vast nuclear bunker, see Hawthorn, Wiltshire Bailo26 3:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
