Talk:Queensway Tunnel

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[edit] The Holland tunnel

It is believed that the first of Liverpool's two road tunnels (1886) to the other side of the River Mersey (Queensway) followed the principles of engineering used in the construction of the Holland Tunnel. Certain aspects of the Mersey tunnel are very similar in appearance to the Holland tunnel and uses similar ventilation.

This is partly true, but is partly misinformed. Construction proceeded very differently: Queensway was built by blasting out the sandstone, whereas the Holland tunnel was mostly built by compressed air shield in what tunnellers call "running ground" and what the rest of us call quicksand. These call for very different types of construction. If you want to trace who followed whom, then perhaps the Holland tunnel followed the dreadful experience of those building of the Bakerloo line tunnels across the gravel beds of the Thames, or the safety features incorporated into Holland followed those in the Blackwall or Rotherhithe road tunnels. The whole debate smacks of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or (more appropriately) which tunnelling project holds the record for driving the longest tunnel in (clay/gravel/gneiss/delete as applicable) this month.

As far as ventilation goes, Queensway definitely took account of what was happening at the Holland tunnel, but also took the results of many other sources: the US Bureau of Mines' original (and excellent) 1919 research for the Holland & Hampton Road tunnels; the work on the Mount Victoria tunnel in New Zealand by Kent Bros.; the work by the UK government to add ventilation to the Blackwall & Rotherhithe road tunnels in the 1920s; and Prof. Douglas Hay's own ventilation experiments at Sheffield University for Queensway. In the end they came up with a different way of solving the problem of diluting vehicle emissions and controlling the movement of smoke. The Holland tunnel is a fully-transverse system (ducted supply, ducted extract) and Queensway is a semi-transverse supply system (ducted supply, point extract). One of these days I'll write a wiki page on road tunnel ventilation to explain the difference.

A minor typo is the year given: 1886 was when the Mersey rail tunnel was opened, not a year in any way related to the Queensway or Holland tunnels.

Ecb 23:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Giles Gilbert Scott

Just a note to explain why I've deleted the reference to Giles Gilbert Scott designing New Quay vent station.

All the references I've found say that all the surface architectural works were by Herbert Rowse. There's even a photograph of the New Quay building with Rowse's name under it in

  • The Story of the Mersey Tunnel, officially named Queensway, 1934

I did a bit of wiki detective work last year and it appears to have originated at Paul W, who put "ventilator shafts for the Mersey Tunnel" onto the list of works by Giles Gilbert Scott. 18 months later, Irate modified Queensway Tunnel to assign the design of New Quay vent station to GGS.

Irate has been blocked indefinitely, so there's no point asking what his source is. Paul W, who appears more reliable, hasn't replied to a question on it (in fairness, the edit in question is now two years old so I don't blame him).

I can't find any evidence to link GGS to New Quay vent station, either on the web or in contemporary sources, so I've deleted it. You can re-instate it if you have better information.

Ecb 20:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rendel St. branch

Why was this closed, and when? 86.136.250.73 17:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Why: It was a combination of increasing traffic flow and the way the road is laid out at the Birkenhead underground junction. The Rendel St branch comes off the north side of the main 4-lane tunnel. When Queensway opened, it had two lanes each way in the main tunnel and one lane each way in the branch tunnels. Traffic was so infrequent that vehicles coming from Liverpool had no difficulty making a right turn (across oncoming traffic) into the Rendel St branch tunnel. Vehicles coming in at Rendel St had no difficulty merging with the main traffic flow.
As the tunnel got more popular, they had to put traffic lights in to give vehicles the time to turn right. By the time it got really busy - in the late 1950s, before Kingsway was planned - they were desperate to keep traffic in the tunnels moving. It was very tempting to shut the Rendel St branch and change the New Quay branch (the branch tunnel on the Liverpool side) so that it took outgoing traffic only—this would have let them stop using the traffic lights in the tunnel. At some point, that's exactly what they did.
If I were to speculate, I'd say that since the toll booths are all in Birkenhead, Mersey Tunnels also saved some of their operating cost by closing the toll booths at the Rendel St portal.
When: some time betwen 1960 and 1984. I have records of airflow tests conducted in 1960 in the vent shaft on the Rendel St branch (Taylor St vent). As the fans were stil functioning and being maintained, I assume that the branch must still have been open. I have photographs from a site visit in 1984 in which the branch is clearly no longer being used. So it must have been closed some time between those two years.
Perhaps a local with a long memory could add something to this?
Ecb 21:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
When: I would disagree with the 1960's date as I remember going through it (vaguely) and I was born in 1974! I also remember the toll booths more clearly. I would speculate that they were removed at around 1980 or so.ACCannon 12:47, 13 August 2007 (BST)