Below the streets of preston,runs a tunnel it still exists today ,many stories have been written about it .. Miley tunnel, will be known to many of you reading this,but in the future it maybe long gone ,it runs from maudland bank ,upto st pauls road ,and consists of a run of three tunnels ,it used to be four but the tunnel was bridged and capped in the middle to give the impression of one long tunnel ,from moor lane ,to st pauls road ... I,cant recall the first time i went through it but as a kid it became almost a daily jaunt ,in those days you had to be careful because a signal box ,still stood close to the present day media building ,on cold bath street behind the former st peters school,which stood on the spot of the media building .. The signal man would come out and shout at you ,to get back ,up the embankment,or back below the signal box into the old canal, which had been emptied ,a few years before. Most evenings youd go because no-body worked the signal box after a certain time, with no evening trains running around that time ,and only a couple of coal trains still ran during the day upto the coal sidings off Deepdale mill street .. The tunnel seems to have gained more notoriety ,from the start of the -1980s even gaining a ghost which it never had,wether this was to warn kids from going down there from weary mothers,you,d more chance of running into a drunk than a ghost ,it became less and less hospitable as the years passed... But there is no doubt this tunnel seems to have become part of preston folklore ,and i suppose thats how stories are made ,as a kid we saw it as a way of travelling under the roads upto batesons on kent street ,were we,d borrow beer in wooden crates ,and go back down under the tunnel to drink it,but the practice became that frequent that miley tunnel became a meeting place for local kids from all areas ,who,d swap stories or burn tyres to sit around and keep warm.. It was dark and echoed ,and the crunch of ballast or stones under foot always made you aware of approaching kids or maybe the police sometimes would come down with their torches ,i think the thick black smoke from the tyres give us away .. Never at any time was it spooky or even eerie,it was to bloody busy...although there were times we,d sit around telling ghosts stories under there,so maybe some of them remained...... The one feeling i always felt under there was peace and quiet,theres part of the tunnel probably just in the middle it bends slightly and at that point you cant see either end,or your hand in front of your face,and your suddenly aware of how dark it is,and you can hear your heartbeat ,but spooky ... no .... Of course i ve never been scared of the dark,so maybe other people would be intimidated by the surroundings . Tunnels by their very nature,tend to be mysterious places ,and far be it from me to dispell miley tunnel and its long history of eerieness if there is such a word as eerieness .... But today sat there under used when it could have been of such use ,to run a tram line through it ,catering for not only uclan -but the football ground at deepdale also a great way of shopping and getting on and off the deepdale retail park because god knows they need to sort that out, not to mention red scar and its white elephant of a park and ride , all these things could and should have been looked into ,direct access could have been achived to and from the town centre ,with lines right into the railway station ,its all there but no they,d like to dig up fishergate,again and lay lines for trams well that will never happen ,theres a track bed under miley tunnel use it bring miley tunnel back to life and serve the people of preston.. Build it and they will come ..i ve heard that somewhere before ,while they dont utilise the tunnel and it s trackbed .it will fall further into decline ,and no-one will use it,so maybe the miley tunnel does have ghost,s after all , Me and you and everybody who,s ever walked it..will anybody ever travel it again ,history will tell us the answer to that ,but maybe long after ive wrote these words .Miley tunnel will live again ,now thats a nice thought...
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:05:57 +0000