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.
The railway line through the
Manawatū Gorge, when constructed in 1891, had five tunnels. Three of these were daylighted in 2008 to allow for the carriage of large containers (the other two tunnels had their floors lowered).[6]
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.
The short remaining portion of Liverpool's Lime Street Station tunnel can be seen west of Edge Hill Station.
^"ROCKHAMPTON". Morning Bulletin. Vol. LXIV, no. 11, 650. Queensland, Australia. 4 April 1903. p. 5. Retrieved 25 April 2024 – via National Library of Australia.