Cheviot Railway Tunnel - VIC

The historic Cheviot Rail Tunnel is located centrally betweenMolesworth andYea (3.6km from the old Cheviot Railway Station) and is a key feature of the former Tallarook to Mansfield Rail Line which is now a tourist route for hikers and cyclists called the Great Victorian Rail Trail. You can walk or cycle through the 150m tunnel. Historically, it was named Balham Tunnel as it was cut through Balham Hill, known as McLaughlins Gap at the south end of the Black Range.

The rail through Cheviot opened in the 1880’s and timber from the Murrindindi State Forest sawmills was loaded onto the rail at the Cheviot Siding. The Cheviot Tunnel provides an excellent example of brick workmanship of the nineteenth century. The bricks for the construction of the tunnel, were kilned on site, with the actual brick kilns, being about 250 metres away from the line, behind a woolshed, approximately 200+metres before the tunnel itself. The kiln site is still in existence. The site where the clay was quarried for the bricks, is now a grazier’s dam, & can be easily identified today. The kiln complex was connected to the Tunnel construction site, by a push powered tramway, delivering the finished kilned bricks to the work site as required. The formation of this construction tramway can still be identified today at the Yea end of the Tunnel at certain times of the year, due to soil disturbance, & the changing of grass colour

Numerous bushfires have devastated the area in 1939 and again in 1969 and you evidence of charred trees and scars are still visible.

Picnic tables, carpark and toilets also located here.