> Throstles Nest No.3 and No.3A Railway Tunnels 📍

These tunnels used to take the Cheshire Lines Committee railway line under Chester Road and Talbot Road near to Throstles Nest Bridge. You can see the southern portal of Tunnel No.3A now if you sit on the left hand side of the tram (facing forwards) between Firswood and Trafford Bar, just as the tram heads under the Altrincham line and turns to join it (see the photo below).

The train route can be seen on Bartholemew’s 1900 map from Manchester Historical Maps. Tunnel No.3’s northern portal just beyond Boyer Street is covered (from around 1988) by the site of the Manchester Audi showroom, and is very near the former site of Greater Manchester Police. Tunnel No.3A cuts under the corner of Henshaw’s Blind Asylum.

Flickr user TVurbex has photos from inside the almost completely filled in tunnels in his Throstle Nest No. 3/3A railway tunnels album. He’s kindly allowed me to include a couple below. There are other photos from 2009 on Steve Power’s Tunnels UK site.

You can see other views on this OS map on the National Library of Scotland site and you can see an aerial photo taken form the south on Britain from Above. As with all other UK railways you can see the route on Rail Map Online.

A significant short section of the CLC ran from Cornbrook to Chorlton; via Throstle Nest South Junction then through a short tunnel, crossed under the MSJA line and Elsinore Road and continued in a cutting to Chorlton Junction. There it became the Midland line to Derby and Great Central line to Guide Bridge and Sheffield.

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From Cornbrook to Throstle Nest South Junction, (in a cutting alongside Boyer Street) also a south to west chord line from this junction to Trafford Park Junction (near Trafford Road) the track bed and former Cornbrook carriage sidings have disappeared under subsequent redevelopment.

Read more about the area on this Greater Manchester History, Architecture, Faces and Places post.

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