It’s easy to take for granted the breath-taking endeavours of 19th Century railway pioneers which thread us through, around or over the nation’s natural barriers. It was an age of speculative adventure, built on innovation, will power and elbow grease. But many magnificent structures were abandoned during the industrial vandalism of the Fifties and Sixties.

Forgotten Relics of an Enterprising Age celebrates many of them.

The characterful Windsor Hill Old Tunnel in Somerset.

Forgotten Relics features stories about some of our more noteworthy railway relics, with details of their construction, operational history and, whenever possible, reminiscences from those who worked there. You’ll also find photo galleries showing dozens of bridges, viaducts, tunnels, earthworks, stations and junctions.

All the site areas are available via the main menu.

Smardale Gill Viaduct in Cumbria is one of our most eye-catching disused structures.

The website also includes reference and research resources such as our Disused Tunnels Database, Listed Viaducts Database, overview of the Beeching Report and advice on how to get a structure listed. There’s our regularly updated News page – bringing together online stories about legacy bridges, tunnels and viaducts – and archive films featuring old railways.

We hope you enjoy the site and find it useful. If your have any feedback or useful information, please get in touch via email or our social media channels.