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Not quite the same, but heres a video showing a certain user jumping from the Clifton Bridge on a single rope.

Not being a "water person" I only had a looksee in the four main adits. The untouched ones really didn't seem too good so they received little more than a passing glance at half a mile an hour! One thing I did see but didn't document was the small "houses" around 1.5 miles into the tunnel, not having much knowledge of this network I can only assume these would have been for Patchers / Staff? They were very very small buildings, carved into very small adits with a small fireplace which vented into the Network Rail tunnel. They were very, very cold, dark and damp and clearly had no natural light - a horrible place to live and work! With regards to the in-use railway tunnel, we didn't go anywhere near it! The vibrations resonated through the water with enough force to lift the front of the dinghy up everytime a heavy freight came through, and the draft the engines created from the railway was absolutely immense! So no - we didn't even contemplate going near it!

Thank you! The adits refer to horizontal passages between the BW tunnel and the Railway tunnels. PIR Sensors are the movement activated alarm sensors you see in houses and what not, white boxes. NR Tunnels refers to the Network Rail road vehicle access tunnels connected to the Standedge tunnel. If people are interested to see more of what goes on, from Coronation Street to Nuclear Bunkers, come and visit us on http://www.28dayslater.co.uk. I subscribed and posted on this forum with the sole intention of reassuring Boaters and BW users that nothing througout all stages of our tunnel passing had been damaged or tampered with, and that we were protected by life jackets and spare boats - hopefully we are clear now! I will pass on a thank you from the other lads involved, for the understanding nature of why we passed Standedge.

The website you linked me to was one of the first sites that inspired our crossing. I must add, we were the second people to pass Standedge in a dinghy. Having seen that all of the audits are potentially accessible by foot, from the NR tunnel - I can only assume this is how they got into and thus caused a stir. Walking into the adits from NR tunnels will not trigger any alarm in the network, it's common knowledge that this can be done without any response, especially when either BW or NR have chained the gates open. My initial idea would be that the clowns who decided to enter the adits on open day were either as stealthy as a brick to the lower back and thus got caught, or tampered with the voice relaying system in each adit which raised a response from security. As to a boater hiding in his boat throughout the passage, I'm not sure what he would have acheived except the possibility of sticking the kettle on.

Hi there, Whilst I appreciate your concerns with triggering the alarms in the adits and the resulting call out to somebody from BW, I must add some facts from being one of the members in the dinghy. With regards to the alarms in the adit, I think a few people have been confused by what BW mean as an "Alarm". Each adit features two PIR sensors, which are linked to and only feeding the emergency lighting system. Thus theres no possibility they could be to trigger an intruder alarm otherwise every time a boat went past them, the alarm would be triggered. There was an alarm point in each adit which consisted of a microphone and loudspeaker, with clear instructions to "Hold the lever down for five seconds, wait for a response from a member of BW staff, then hold the lever up to talk". Clearly we didn't touch this system, as I don't think it would have done us much good. To attempt to reassure you, I must add - nothing was damaged, touched or tampered throughout the entire journey. Nobody interfered with any of the systems, gates or sensors and we ultimately sailed in through one end and out the other side. There were three life jackets in a black zipper holdall to aid us should we have got into trouble - plus a secondary boat. Be assured it won't be happening again, and nothing was damaged and nobody was harmed.. It was a well prepared adventure that went without hitch. I do have to laugh at Gaggles quote though, I can understand that OAPs travel through the tunnel on boats, but lets be fair - they don't exactly do the entire tunnel in a dinghy now..! I have to add, thanks for the ultimately positive reception from the Waterways community.