I had intended a conventional (by standards) editorial this month but a ‘complete failure of bells and instruments’ – in thea 1987 colour photograph of the entrance to Totley Tunnel and our editorial picture is of the same scene around 60 years earlier, with Midland Railway 2P 4-4-0 No.382 about to plunge into its blackness. The name of the tunnel and the date of its completion are helpfully inscribed above it, while the sign denoting its length as 6,230 yards – or 3 miles 950 yards – identifies it as the second longest railway tunnel in Britain. However, since the opening of the two HS1 tunnels in 2007, it is actually now the fourth longest. The locomotive, of the ‘1808’ Class, dates from 1888 when it left Derby Works as No.1812, later renumbered 382 by the London Midland & Scottish Railway in 1907. Its services were dispensed with in October 1935.
