Fourty One

Less than a week later from sliding out of a tunnel in a dingy, I find myself venturing underground yet again. Only this time, beneath the city streets!...

Report: The Chambers below Gmex, Underground...


From what I've heard, explorers scoping out the underground passageways beneath the city have proved time consuming jobs. After a recce of this with Scott, it was happening. Stepping Lightly was called and came into the city, trips home for everyone to gather relevant equipment, Petzl Headtorches, Helmets, Tripods and Camera Equipment.

Okay, a small bit of history where we went (Scotts words)...The central GMEX underground site was actually the site of the Salford and Junction Canal. This was built to join the Rochdale Canal with the River Irwell. Opening in 1839 competition with other canals was rife, the canal was over half a mile in length and featured two pumping engines and many locks.

The site was bought in 1872 by the Bridgewater and so lost it's value as a competitive canal route. The railway decided to build their Central Station terminus (GMEX) above it in 1872 and in doing so, they filled in a fair portion of the site and thus sealed the junctions fate finally in 1875.

At the start of the war, the tunnel was revived as air raid shelters. Divided into bays which you see in our pics, each was seperated by a hefty brick wall for blast protection. The eastern end had been anhiliated by the cancal company but the basins along the other end remained unfilled until after the war.



So, how to describe such a place. Magnificent. It was huge, the photo above show's the first chamber we entered, almost 3 storeys in hieght, you could fit you could fit a house in here, and a very big one at that. We quickly adjusted to the environment, this place is Pitch Black. The lightpainting and Strobing was used constantly.

The shot above shows the first set of stairs we encountered, leading down yet further in the chambers...

I Spotted this old pepsi can, probably from the 1970's, more recent from the war, probably left by an engineer or troublemaker!

This was huge, Its a lift. The lift was to transfer the goods of the canal boats up into the warehouse, and then they would be loaded on to trains and driven off. It was seven storys in height but was mostly removed when they remodelled the place...2 storeys in hieght now...

Yet futher we entered more chambers....We walked around the corner of another part. red LED's lined the cieling...they were the battery packs of lights, and also spotted was a DOME CAM. Shit...what the fuck was a done cam doing underground. we walked back to strategise a new plan, we all switched out torches to red, something the camera's dont pick up unless they're in their exact direction. We had no protection if it was and IR CCTV Unit though...a plan was devised to photograph this high profile area of this new chamber. we set our cameras to manual focus, and we were to fire One Flash only. This would appear on the CCTV as white noise, therefore not revealing out presence.

The photos above show the one flash system used to photograph the chamber protected by the Dome cam CCTV. Once through we carried on through more of the tunnels and chambers....

Some of the staircases found in each chamber were huge (above). Some of them four flights up, which would have left the underground passages used in the war.

Futher chambers....(above)


The photos above show what was once a canal. You can notice the docking platforms on the end. this was prior to civilians staying down here during the war, the newer bricks are rooms built around 1940, toilets, etc...

Above, show the toilet cubicles, some of the still in there!
We then stumbled into a new chamber...more stairs seemed to lead up to the surface but are now blocked over. It was like it was from a movie, except this was real. Water, as clear as glass, extremely still, had flooded one half of a chamber.


This was freshwater, and 3 foot deep. We had no idea where it came from. the water stemmed around and led over a concrete structure out of this chamber. SL decided to go look, took his trousers and shoes off, and ventured into the abyss...






He got back and carefully climbed out of the water, dripping wet. He showed us photogaphs he took on his camera, it revealed a whole new series of chambers, but could'nt go any further as there was a drop in depth, there are probably more chambers...many more that we didnt see, Amongst other findings, was a toilet sat peacefully fully underwater! Once his photos are sorted i will post a link to them...---> here







End.