Woodhead remembered
Marking the 40th anniversary of its closure as a through route, Graeme Pickering chronicles the rise and fall of Britain’s first all-electric main line.
THE story of the 41.5 mile long Woodhead route, through the Pennines between Manchester and Sheffield, is a compelling one. Brought to life through the efforts of hundreds of workers carving their way through the remote landscape, after a century of service it was transformed into the most modern railway line in Britain. But its closure a mere 30 years later, despite a fight by unions, councils and transport campaigners to keep it open, is still the cause of much reflection today. The route was formally opened on December 22, 1845 although it had been completed in sections over the previous four years. Its owner the Sheffield, Ashton-underLyne & Manchester Railway (SA&MR) had been formed in response to demand for a connection that would allow easier and cheaper transfer of goods between Sheffield and Manchester and onwards to Liverpool. The line’s best-known feature is the threemile (4.8km) Woodhead Tunnel. While it was an awe inspiring feat of engineering, as with other railway projects of the period, the human cost of building it was high. Work continued 24 hours a day, seven days a week with little regard for welfare. During the construction of the first bore alone, around 30 workers were killed and 200 seriously injured.
Outside their 12 hour shifts, the navvies lived in a sprawling encampment on the nearby moor, sometimes with as many as 15 of them to a hut. An outbreak of cholera during the construction of the second bore of the tunnel led to a further 28 deaths.
Among the line’s other notable engineering features were the 1455ft-long (440m) Dinting Viaduct, standing 125ft high, and its shorter but taller neighbour at Broadbottom.
Within 20 years, the original timber structures had been replaced by girder bridges that used the original piers, although these too later required strengthening and additional piers. Both continue to carry trains between Manchester and Glossop/Hadfield today.
Expansion & modernisation
The SA&MR initially used the Manchester and Birmingham Railway’s temporary station in Travis Street as its Manchester terminus, but by the time the line via Woodhead had been completed throughout, its services were using a new joint station at Store Street, which in 1847 was renamed London Road. Expanded in 1881 with the addition of two spans to the train shed roof, the station was redeveloped by British Railways and renamed Manchester Piccadilly in 1960. Having already amalgamated with the Barnsley Junction Railway, negotiations with the Sheffield & Lincolnshire Junction and the Great Grimsby & Sheffield Junction companies saw the SA&MR superseded by the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway in January 1847. In order to push east from Sheffield towards Lincolnshire, an impressive viaduct and station were built to the east of the SA&MR’s existing Bridgehouses terminus. The ‘Wicker Arches’ carried the route across the River Wicker and supported the new Sheffield Victoria station, which opened on September 15, 1851. The Sheffield Independent newspaper described the original architectural style of the station as “very simple”. It had a glass and iron roof, which was 400ft long and over 80ft wide and covered two island platforms. A new roof was constructed a quarter of a century later and subsequently three additional platforms were built. In 1908, the Great Central Railway (the
“Woodhead Tunnel was an awe inspiring feat of engineering, but the human cost was high”
name taken on by the MS&LR in 1897) made changes to the station entrance, including the addition of a clock tower. It was facelifted again in an art deco style in the 1930s. Unlike the station, which was demolished in 1989, the adjacent Royal Victoria Hotel (built for the railway in the 1860s) remains open today.
The GCR opened a major marshalling yard at Wath in 1907, which trains reached by leaving the main Woodhead line at
Barnsley Junction (east of Penistone) and the Worsborough branch. Loaded trains from the numerous local collieries would operate to the yard, where their wagons were reformed into longer distance trains. Empties were returned and separated into local trains in the same manner.
Freight focus
As the investment at Wath demonstrated, coal continued to be of major importance to the company, but the challenging gradients meant that the route’s capacity was hampered by steam haulage of such heavy trains. Electrification was considered by the GCR, but it was not until 1926 that a detailed scheme was examined and a report prepared for the