Snow Hill Tunnel (Birmingham)

Snow Hill Tunnel is a railway tunnel underneath Birmingham city-centre. It runs for 635 yards (580 metres), linking Birmingham Moor Street station at its southern end, with Birmingham Snow Hill station at its northern end. It is a vital link in the cross-city Snow Hill Lines.

The tunnel was opened in 1852 by the Great Western Railway as part of their London (Paddington) to Birkenhead Woodside main line. It was built using the cut and cover method as far as Temple Row, and then a deep cutting to Snow Hill. In 1872 the cutting from Temple Row to Snow Hill was roofed over and the Great Western Arcade built on top.

At the Snow Hill end of the tunnel, a short siding existed within the tunnel, alongside which was an underground entrance to the Birmingham branch of the Bank of England. This siding was used to transport cash and bullion by train to and from the bank. This facility was last used in the mid-1960s. The bank entrance is now sealed up.

As traffic into Snow Hill station grew, the twin tracked tunnel became a capacity bottleneck. This proved to be a problem when Snow Hill station was rebuilt and expanded in the 1900s. It was not economically feasible to widen the tunnel, as this would have required demolition of prime city-centre buildings whose foundations impeded construction. The capacity problem was therefore solved by building Moor Street station as a terminus at the southern end of the tunnel, in order to allow local trains from the south to terminate there instead of Snow Hill.

Snow Hill station was run down and closed under the Beeching axe in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Services south from Snow Hill were ended in 1968, and the tunnel was closed to all traffic. The last train passed through on 2 March 1968. Trains from the north continued into Snow Hill until the station was closed in 1972.

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