The tunnel is known to be the first in the world specifically designed to carry passengers to be worked by steam trains rather than a stationary engine.
The present Richmond Hill Tunnel is 118 yards (108 m) long, and is part of the longer Marsh Lane Cutting, which connects the eastward entrance and exit into Leeds railway station to the lines going towards Selby and York.
Several schemes were mooted in the 1820s to connect Leeds with Hull, Goole or Selby, using either inclined planes, or a tunnel under Richmond Hill of 1,100 yards (1,000 m) in length.
[4] Walker himself stated in his report that ....Richmond Hill will require either a formation of a tunnel eight hundred yards long, or two inclined planes with fixed Engines; [sic] one ascending, the other descending.
Of these plans, I have never hesitated in advising the former;- first because a tunnel is likely to be much less objectionable to the owners of the land and buildings upon Richmond Hill; second because the angle of planes there would be so great as to render them dangerous; third, because it is a great and manifest waste of labour, and will prove a serious obstruction to the general utility of the project, to have to drag loads to the top of a hill, for the mere purpose of immediately lowering them again.....[5]Building of the route started in October 1830, with work on the tunnel starting on 5 November 1831.
To enhance this, the contractors placed "sheets of tinned copper", 2 feet 6 inches (0.76 m) square on the space between the two sets of rails at the bottom of each shaft.
[12] A reporter from the Leeds Mercury visited the construction, commenting on the "Herculean" strengths of the workers and claiming that a newspaper could be read within the tunnel due to the amount of reflected light.
[15] One traveller wrote about a journey through the tunnel: "We were immediately enveloped in total darkness, and every one of the carriages filled with smoke and steam to a most annoying degree.
[32] Work started in December 1892, and a report in the Huddersfield Chronicle states that two workers were crushed to death when a new bridge was being built to replace the road that previously crossed above the now opened out tunnel.
[36] Throughout the works, most traffic was diverted, but a single line was kept open which was protected by a timber frame, allowing the old tunnel and hill to be taken down.