I'm from Glossop. The lines now a trail..We used to cycle as small kids to the tunnels. Took a "picnic", nowt but a few jam butties and a bottle of cordial.. happy days..We thought we were like something out of an Enid Blyton book!
What a wonderful film this is reminding us of the hard work that was put in to create the new tunnel and how useful the Woodhead Route was. Such a shame that respective governments saw fit to run this thoroughfare down and eventually close it like they did to the rest of the Great Central Route. How we wish it was all still with us as it would have made an easy HS2. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Very true, .... but then again you've not got dedicated railwaymen who can see the economic benefits when you're talking politicians and accountants, who only see short termism and profit as a motive to providing a service or some infrastructure.
In the late 70s I worked at Guide Bridge with men who fired and drove steam through the old tunnel all said what a nightmare it was .The decision to electrify the route was a sound one just a pity they chose DC to do it proved expensive to maintain but surely it could have been converted and that wonderful line saved.
The French originally used the cumbersome DC system and switched over wholesale to AC when it was proved to be so much better. Yes indeed it could have been done easily and the GCR route re-used as a high speed only line. But they have a government representative of the people and we are merely subjects of a penny pinching monarchy.
i live in sheffield and i'm super close to one of the old stations and im so sad it closed especially because it was used so much and served a really good purpose... also because sheffield doesn't have electrification anymore and there isn't confirmed electrification here until HS2 in 2033
Ironic isn't. That 30 year after they decided to tear this line up, a good electric transpenine link is exactly what we are in desperate need of! One short sighted government after another...will they ever learn?
Eye, but at the time, would you be willing to agree to a tax hike to pay for a line that, along with a lot of others, cost a fortune in maintenance, and it's US.!, the tax payer who's paying cos not enough people use the line, and with what seems like everyone is buying a car and driving to work, so, no one would have guessed that half a century later we'd be talking about it. I'm a huge train fan. I'd stop short of 'spotter', but I love ANYTHING to do with opening up old routes(GO Waverly!🥳🥳!.), but, you're just another one of them "damn government.!! I'd have done..." without thinking about what was going on at the time. You have HINDSIGHT ID LOVE to put people like you in a position of big government decision making RIGHT NOW, and see what percentage of decisions you got right. With the comments you've made so far, I wouldn't want you in my cabinet.🤬. Nice to chat with ya. Rich🥰🥰🥰.
@@richardjellis9186 Thanks for that little rant. But actually it wasn't half a century. The tracks were lifted in 1985/6, and congestion on transpennine was becoming an issue barely 20 years later. You could say we have the benefit of hindsight now. Or you could compare our country's policies on public transport with those in France or Germany for instance, and conclude it's not just about hindsight but about having a long term vision for the system as a whole. I'm not critical of the closure of this line specifically, but of the short-termism and disjointedness of the UK government's attitude to public transport as a whole. It's all rather better on the continent and that's because they have a completely different (and much more progressive) attitude to public transport. than us.
@@richardjellis9186 I believe it was not losing money at the time but was seen as too costly to upgrade the line from DC to AC like the rest of the network. 😳🏴🇬🇧🤠
@@pgbaines65 they used that as an excuse to put the money into the east coast electrification scheme, they could have converted it over to AC a lot less than quoted.
That's appropriate because platform 1 is one of the ones used by the Woodhead trains. The station was built as London Road and it was jointly owned. The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway's "half" was the north side.
Plans for and a start made in the electrification of the route started prewar. But were halted due to the war.The Bo-Bo electrics [class 76] were designed by Sir Nigel Gresley and were his last before he passed away in 1941.
The freight train at 0:30 is headed by an O4 2-8-0 leading a second locomotive, what I don't know. At 0:50 the train is being banked by a WD 2-8-0 leading possibly an O1 2-8-0. If that is the same train, with four engines, no wonder the low, narrow Early Victorian tunnel was known as a hell hole. At one period crews were issued with breathing apparatus. Steam had to go, but it was wonderful!
The GCR IS HS2 , 75% of the trackbed still stands ,branch off at Leicester for Birmingham , branch off at Sheffield for Manchester , use the old now closed MR route to Leeds and branch off to York , a no brainer , but oh wait ,the Lords etc' who own shares in the construction companies want to build a new route , hmmmmmm jobs for the boys me thinks
They didn't close the whole Great Central Route. British Rail closed most of the London extension - which should never have been built anyway and was totally surplus to requirements. It duplicated the Midland Main Line.
Whoever's idea it was to shut this, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Their shortsightedness and incompetence is partly responsible for the M1 and M62 being the nightmare they are now. Rule Britania!!, that went long ago.
Yes it was the best route across the Pennines . I worked on the Sheffield side between Sheffield Victoria and Deepcar in the 1980s also in 70 s as well
That line was closed under false pretences. 1500V DC is a standard UIC electrification, there's plenty of kit around for it. No reason that 25kV AC must be everywhere - see the southern region.
Indeed. It makes regenerative braking easy, without the worry of getting the frequency and phase correct. The prototype EM1 (Class 76) locomotive was loaned to NS, the Dutch national railway immediately after the war and was affectionately named _Tommy._ The handful of more powerful Class 77 (EM2) locomotives were later sold to NS after a very short career on the route. On closure NS offered to buy the more common and considerably more tired Class 76s too but the Department of Transport decided that selling them would weaken the argument that they were life expired.
@@johnm2012 Wow, thanks so much for this insight! I went to my library: In September 1980 there were still 30 machines out of 58 built in stock (Ken Harris). Since the Woodhead route was already (disgracefully) scheduled for closure, there was factually no further use for them. They worked briefly on the construction of the Newcastle Metro (1500 DC), but that wasn't any sort of perspective for future work. So the then DoT preferred scrapping them to giving them a future perspective on the NS network? Unfathomable, that's just a warcrime. The machines were not "life expired", but "redundant", a very different matter. The DoT just lied. Of course, the NS carries no blame at all in this matter, rather the contrary.
There was a recession going on at the time and falling traffic volumes, or had you forgotten that? With spare capacity elsewhere and a tight-fisted government what else could BR do?
@@johnm2012 The Class 77 wasn't terribly successful on the route, Co-Co arrangement and thus insufficient adhesive weight made them prone to slipping, whereas the Class 76 Bo-Bo was about right.
I agree with that I only travelled on it once in 1966 yes and it was faster than than the happy valley ie hope valley the name given by the signalmen working on the woodhead line as I became one in 1971
We were better run then. We just have a Failed Towel Folder in Charge Now. Perhaps Osborne can vie for the role of ineffectual Swazi King Mswati 3:-(((
The voltage this was electrified at was different to that of the adopted standards shortly after. Still though, no justification to close the line. The line closed to further line the pockets of those involved in the affairs of the automobile.
Isochest Marples had a motorway construction company. There is much that is not publicly known about Marples’ & co dodgy affairs, not least because many documents are still concealed by extensions under the official secrets act. It is fair more fundamental than the subsidizing of HGV’s.
Well lets see. 1. The electrification equipment was live expired and as the only 1500V DC line in the country would have been expensive to replace. 2. Falling traffic levels nationwide due to the recession of the early 1980s which meant less revenues for the replacement equipment. 3. Spare capacity on the other Sheffiled to Manchester route caused by the falling traffic volumes. 4. A government wanting BR to cut costs. 5. The expense of needing at least 3 locomotives and crews for the Fiddler's Ferry MGR trains (a diesel locomotive from the pit to the start of the Wodhead line, the Woodheadbline DC locomotive and another diesel form the Manchester end to the power station). Put it all together and you get the closure notice.
The tunnel cost £4.500,000 to build which is about at least £100,000,000 in today's money, & the loss of six lives constructing it. It closed to passengers in 1970, & completely 11 years later. The vast majority would have seen all that construction as a waste of money. At worse why not simply close the line completely instead of building Woodhead Tunnel 3? Today the main Sheffield-Manchester links are are served by the Woodhead pass which is heavily used & the Snake pass which can be prone to closures in winter weather.
was down at dunford bridge today sad to say now that the national grid are running power cables through the 1954 tunnel sad loss to the rail network and they are updating the midland main line from sheffield to manchester those tunnels on that line are crumbling not like the 1954 woodhead tunnel pollitics what a waste of time
It was only a minor route. The ife expired equipment, the recession, falling traffic levels and spare capacity all meant thatbthe line was no longer needed.
Nothng wrong wth DC. Dutch ralways renewed theirs. The new tunnel was only open to passengers for about 15 years - which is absolutely ridculous. The truth is we were livng through a time when railways were considered by many (including Margaret Thatcher) to be an old fashioned embarrassment. She became the first prime minster to never travel by train. She made a point of it. Thank goodness Michael Portillo became her darling, or we'd have lost the Settle to Carlsle too.
It was built to the continental loading guage. Most of the the GCR was because the founders wanted to build a channel tunnel and have through trains from Europe to the north of England. In the 1990s I was part of a project to reopen it for use as a container 'conveyor belt' from Liverpool to Hull to get HGVs off the M62. Was going well until that moron Major privatised BR inot a mess of squabbling profit hungry competitors.
A complete waste of time, manpower and money building the twin bore tunnel given that It was shut In less than 30 years of It opening. Ironic isn't It that talk of a faster trans Pennine route raises It's head just as the arse hole power company puts power lines through the tunnel. With all the profit they are making why did'nt they refurb the old single bore tunnels!!!!
It's a great shame it was closed but it was certainly not a complete waste of time, manpower or money. As the narrator explained, the benefits of the new tunnel and electrification were immediate. It's also pointless to blame the National Grid (or whatever fancy name it has today) for making good use of an asset it bought. Regarding the old tunnels, you can't just thread wires through a hole in a mountain and then forget them. The tunnel and the cables have to be maintained and the old tunnels were too deteriorated to continue in use.
Lack of insight, simply very poor judgement, to build the new tunnel, then waste it, without making the conversion to 25kv AC in the early 1970s would have made it well in keeping with the remainder of the network. If now only singled even as bi- directional, it would still serve a useful purpose to suit the twenty first century requirements, as and when needed.
With the benefit of hindsight what a monumental waste of money. Build a tunnel with a life of less than 30 years and electrify the line with low voltage AC abandoned almost immediately on future railway electrification.
Tell me can you predict the future? This line was closed because of several factors thatnthe producers of this film or BR or anyone else could have foreseen. The electrification equipment was life expired (which could have been replaced but for the recession, etc). The country was in recession (again), which caused a drop in traffic nationally. This drop in traffic caused spare capacity on the other route between Manchester and Sheffield. The line was expensive to operate a typical MGR train would require a diesel locomotive to bring the coalmtomthe start of the Woodhead line where the diesel would be replace by one or two Class 76 locomotives for the run to Machester (it might even need a one or two banking locomotives (again Class 76)) and then a 2nd diesel locomotive to move the coal to Fiddler's Ferry power station. So, that's upto 6 locomotive and 4 crews and each change took time. Whilst using the Hope Valley line would need 1 locomotive plus as many crews as necessary for the full route knowledge and to the rules on working hours.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 you are absolutely correct, which is exactly why my comment started ‘with the benefit of hindsight’. Your detailed description of the operation of the line’s main, and ultimately only traffic, with all the inefficiencies involved, surely again fits the description of ‘ if we had known this at the time we would not have electrified a single isolated line with this system, but waited forclass 20s or 37s to come along.”
@@brianwillson9567 let's unravel it. 1 the plan at the start of the electrification process was to have all the lines electrified at what was at the time the UK's standard for overhead electrification. This line was seen as the testbed. However, due to delays caused by a war that we knew was coming but not when it was overtaken by the new technology, which wasn't all that new as AC overhead electricity had been used by the LNWR since the early part of the 20th Century. As for the inefficiencies of the operation of the MGR trains, well they were over a decade away when this line opened and as the Beeching report states it took over 11 days for a wagon to go from loaded to loaded again, but although this is well known in the railway circles it's nor public knowledge and it won't be for over a half a decade. This is why the Modernisation Plan called for lots of white elephant marshalling yards that when opened never reached their design capacity. Then there was also no reason to suspect that the class 20s or 37s would be a success, that wouldn't be known for a few years yet.
I'm from Glossop. The lines now a trail..We used to cycle as small kids to the tunnels. Took a "picnic", nowt but a few jam butties and a bottle of cordial.. happy days..We thought we were like something out of an Enid Blyton book!
What a wonderful film this is reminding us of the hard work that was put in to create the new tunnel and how useful the Woodhead Route was. Such a shame that respective governments saw fit to run this thoroughfare down and eventually close it like they did to the rest of the Great Central Route. How we wish it was all still with us as it would have made an easy HS2. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Very true, .... but then again you've not got dedicated railwaymen who can see the economic benefits when you're talking politicians and accountants, who only see short termism and profit as a motive to providing a service or some infrastructure.
What HITLER couldn't do in the War Our Governments have done since...F***k OUR Country UP...
Super hard danger-est drink work, from what I hear.
all intentional.
The Woodhead Route is a tribute to the ordinary folk of the UK. We need to celebrate our brothers and sisters achievements.
In the late 70s I worked at Guide Bridge with men who fired and drove steam through the old tunnel all said what a nightmare it was .The decision to electrify the route was a sound one just a pity they chose DC to do it proved expensive to maintain but surely it could have been converted and that wonderful line saved.
The French originally used the cumbersome DC system and switched over wholesale to AC when it was proved to be so much better. Yes indeed it could have been done easily and the GCR route re-used as a high speed only line.
But they have a government representative of the people and we are merely subjects of a penny pinching monarchy.
i live in sheffield and i'm super close to one of the old stations and im so sad it closed especially because it was used so much and served a really good purpose... also because sheffield doesn't have electrification anymore and there isn't confirmed electrification here until HS2 in 2033
Ironic isn't.
That 30 year after they decided to tear this line up, a good electric transpenine link is exactly what we are in desperate need of!
One short sighted government after another...will they ever learn?
Eye, but at the time, would you be willing to agree to a tax hike to pay for a line that, along with a lot of others, cost a fortune in maintenance, and it's US.!, the tax payer who's paying cos not enough people use the line, and with what seems like everyone is buying a car and driving to work, so, no one would have guessed that half a century later we'd be talking about it.
I'm a huge train fan. I'd stop short of 'spotter', but I love ANYTHING to do with opening up old routes(GO Waverly!🥳🥳!.), but, you're just another one of them "damn government.!! I'd have done..." without thinking about what was going on at the time. You have HINDSIGHT
ID LOVE to put people like you in a position of big government decision making RIGHT NOW, and see what percentage of decisions you got right. With the comments you've made so far, I wouldn't want you in my cabinet.🤬.
Nice to chat with ya.
Rich🥰🥰🥰.
@@richardjellis9186 Thanks for that little rant.
But actually it wasn't half a century. The tracks were lifted in 1985/6, and congestion on transpennine was becoming an issue barely 20 years later.
You could say we have the benefit of hindsight now. Or you could compare our country's policies on public transport with those in France or Germany for instance, and conclude it's not just about hindsight but about having a long term vision for the system as a whole. I'm not critical of the closure of this line specifically, but of the short-termism and disjointedness of the UK government's attitude to public transport as a whole. It's all rather better on the continent and that's because they have a completely different (and much more progressive) attitude to public transport. than us.
@@richardjellis9186 I believe it was not losing money at the time but was seen as too costly to upgrade the line from DC to AC like the rest of the network. 😳🏴🇬🇧🤠
@@pgbaines65 they used that as an excuse to put the money into the east coast electrification scheme, they could have converted it over to AC a lot less than quoted.
@@richardjellis9186 yes
I do believe the plaque at 2:34 is now on the wall of Manchester Piccadilly Station, Platform 1 near the concourse.
Yes it is.
That's appropriate because platform 1 is one of the ones used by the Woodhead trains. The station was built as London Road and it was jointly owned. The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway's "half" was the north side.
Plans for and a start made in the electrification of the route started prewar. But were halted due to the war.The Bo-Bo electrics [class 76] were designed by Sir Nigel Gresley and were his last before he passed away in 1941.
The freight train at 0:30 is headed by an O4 2-8-0 leading a second locomotive, what I don't know. At 0:50 the train is being banked by a WD 2-8-0 leading possibly an O1 2-8-0. If that is the same train, with four engines, no wonder the low, narrow Early Victorian tunnel was known as a hell hole. At one period crews were issued with breathing apparatus. Steam had to go, but it was wonderful!
The heaviest coal trains were double headed and double banked on the Wath branch even after electrification.
Long live the woodhead tunnel railway I wish it bring it back rest in peace
I remember Woodhead closing, now we're being how to save the planet. Foxtrot Oscar!
The GCR IS HS2 , 75% of the trackbed still stands ,branch off at Leicester for Birmingham , branch off at Sheffield for Manchester , use the old now closed MR route to Leeds and branch off to York , a no brainer , but oh wait ,the Lords etc' who own shares in the construction companies want to build a new route , hmmmmmm jobs for the boys me thinks
Except the curves on the line and the non-direct routing would make it no quicker than existing lines and certainly wouldn't be High Speed Rail.
And then they closed the whole of the GCR route. Clever huh?
They didn't close the whole Great Central Route. British Rail closed most of the London extension - which should never have been built anyway and was totally surplus to requirements. It duplicated the Midland Main Line.
Poor damn driver, on banking detail, through them tunnels.!😭!.
I feel for that poor bastard.!!😭!!.
Whoever's idea it was to shut this, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Their shortsightedness and incompetence is partly responsible for the M1 and M62 being the nightmare they are now. Rule Britania!!, that went long ago.
The Woodhead route was used mainly to transport coal from Yorkshire to Lancashire. That has nothing to do with a north/south road like the M1.
@@robinmoss5470 some Sheffield - Manchester freight & passenger traffic now goes by the M1 & M62
Yes it was the best route across the Pennines . I worked on the Sheffield side between Sheffield Victoria and Deepcar in the 1980s also in 70 s as well
@@macfunkey would that because one of the direct routes involved Snake Pass? I guess those truckers prefer the motorways to single lane A roads.
Was the future, now the past: WOODHEAD
That line was closed under false pretences. 1500V DC is a standard UIC electrification, there's plenty of kit around for it. No reason that 25kV AC must be everywhere - see the southern region.
Indeed. It makes regenerative braking easy, without the worry of getting the frequency and phase correct. The prototype EM1 (Class 76) locomotive was loaned to NS, the Dutch national railway immediately after the war and was affectionately named _Tommy._ The handful of more powerful Class 77 (EM2) locomotives were later sold to NS after a very short career on the route. On closure NS offered to buy the more common and considerably more tired Class 76s too but the Department of Transport decided that selling them would weaken the argument that they were life expired.
@@johnm2012 Wow, thanks so much for this insight! I went to my library: In September 1980 there were still 30 machines out of 58 built in stock (Ken Harris). Since the Woodhead route was already (disgracefully) scheduled for closure, there was factually no further use for them. They worked briefly on the construction of the Newcastle Metro (1500 DC), but that wasn't any sort of perspective for future work. So the then DoT preferred scrapping them to giving them a future perspective on the NS network? Unfathomable, that's just a warcrime. The machines were not "life expired", but "redundant", a very different matter. The DoT just lied. Of course, the NS carries no blame at all in this matter, rather the contrary.
There was a recession going on at the time and falling traffic volumes, or had you forgotten that? With spare capacity elsewhere and a tight-fisted government what else could BR do?
@@johnm2012 The Class 77 wasn't terribly successful on the route, Co-Co arrangement and thus insufficient adhesive weight made them prone to slipping, whereas the Class 76 Bo-Bo was about right.
Rip woodhead
It did provide a signpost..Spend money,then scrap it. Bodes well for HS2?
Only option now would be to re-bore the two older tunnels into one large tunnel. I feel it will happen one day. Fastest route over the Pennines.
I agree with that I only travelled on it once in 1966 yes and it was faster than than the happy valley ie hope valley the name given by the signalmen working on the woodhead line as I became one in 1971
Depends on the geology. Reboring can be as hazardous as cutting a new tunnel. Penmanshiel springs to mind.
We were better run then. We just have a Failed Towel Folder in Charge Now. Perhaps Osborne can vie for the role of ineffectual Swazi King Mswati 3:-(((
The voltage this was electrified at was different to that of the adopted standards shortly after. Still though, no justification to close the line. The line closed to further line the pockets of those involved in the affairs of the automobile.
The HGV actually. Marples wanted car drivers to subsidise HGVs and openly said so
Isochest Marples had a motorway construction company. There is much that is not publicly known about Marples’ & co dodgy affairs, not least because many documents are still concealed by extensions under the official secrets act.
It is fair more fundamental than the subsidizing of HGV’s.
Well lets see. 1. The electrification equipment was live expired and as the only 1500V DC line in the country would have been expensive to replace. 2. Falling traffic levels nationwide due to the recession of the early 1980s which meant less revenues for the replacement equipment. 3. Spare capacity on the other Sheffiled to Manchester route caused by the falling traffic volumes. 4. A government wanting BR to cut costs. 5. The expense of needing at least 3 locomotives and crews for the Fiddler's Ferry MGR trains (a diesel locomotive from the pit to the start of the Wodhead line, the Woodheadbline DC locomotive and another diesel form the Manchester end to the power station). Put it all together and you get the closure notice.
Not exactly a signpost to the future when it was closed and abandoned in the 1980's.
Not even a signpost when it opened. 25kV had been adopted as the new standard.
The tunnel cost £4.500,000 to build which is about at least £100,000,000 in today's money, & the loss of six lives constructing it. It closed to passengers in 1970, & completely 11 years later. The vast majority would have seen all that construction as a waste of money. At worse why not simply close the line completely instead of building Woodhead Tunnel 3? Today the main Sheffield-Manchester links are are served by the Woodhead pass which is heavily used & the Snake pass which can be prone to closures in winter weather.
was down at dunford bridge today sad to say now that the national grid are running power cables through the 1954 tunnel sad loss to the rail network and they are updating the midland main line from sheffield to manchester those tunnels on that line are crumbling not like the 1954 woodhead tunnel pollitics what a waste of time
The line was closed some 27 years after the new Woodhead tunnel was completed and money not well spent.
One of the major electric railways to closed. What a terrible Government mistake.
It was only a minor route. The ife expired equipment, the recession, falling traffic levels and spare capacity all meant thatbthe line was no longer needed.
Nothng wrong wth DC. Dutch ralways renewed theirs. The new tunnel was only open to passengers for about 15 years - which is absolutely ridculous. The truth is we were livng through a time when railways were considered by many (including Margaret Thatcher) to be an old fashioned embarrassment. She became the first prime minster to never travel by train. She made a point of it. Thank goodness Michael Portillo became her darling, or we'd have lost the Settle to Carlsle too.
An incredible feat, although not big enough for contemporary usage
uh , why.........................
It was built to the continental loading guage. Most of the the GCR was because the founders wanted to build a channel tunnel and have through trains from Europe to the north of England. In the 1990s I was part of a project to reopen it for use as a container 'conveyor belt' from Liverpool to Hull to get HGVs off the M62. Was going well until that moron Major privatised BR inot a mess of squabbling profit hungry competitors.
The 1 dislike is Margaret Thatcher.
THE FILTH!!!
A complete waste of time, manpower and money building the twin bore tunnel given that It was shut In less than 30 years of It opening.
Ironic isn't It that talk of a faster trans Pennine route raises It's head just as the arse hole power company puts power lines through the tunnel. With all the profit they are making why did'nt they refurb the old single bore tunnels!!!!
It's a great shame it was closed but it was certainly not a complete waste of time, manpower or money. As the narrator explained, the benefits of the new tunnel and electrification were immediate. It's also pointless to blame the National Grid (or whatever fancy name it has today) for making good use of an asset it bought. Regarding the old tunnels, you can't just thread wires through a hole in a mountain and then forget them. The tunnel and the cables have to be maintained and the old tunnels were too deteriorated to continue in use.
Except the concept and the system were out of touch with modern British Railways. This tunnel was then closed.
What a complete waste of a railway
Lack of insight, simply very poor judgement, to build the new tunnel, then waste it, without making the conversion to 25kv AC in the early 1970s would have made it well in keeping with the remainder of the network.
If now only singled even as bi- directional, it would still serve a useful purpose to suit the twenty first century requirements, as and when needed.
omg it's a friend of thomas the tank engine
OMG, you're a cretin.
sorry about that i just can help it.
With the benefit of hindsight what a monumental waste of money. Build a tunnel with a life of less than 30 years and electrify the line with low voltage AC abandoned almost immediately on future railway electrification.
Tell me can you predict the future? This line was closed because of several factors thatnthe producers of this film or BR or anyone else could have foreseen. The electrification equipment was life expired (which could have been replaced but for the recession, etc). The country was in recession (again), which caused a drop in traffic nationally. This drop in traffic caused spare capacity on the other route between Manchester and Sheffield. The line was expensive to operate a typical MGR train would require a diesel locomotive to bring the coalmtomthe start of the Woodhead line where the diesel would be replace by one or two Class 76 locomotives for the run to Machester (it might even need a one or two banking locomotives (again Class 76)) and then a 2nd diesel locomotive to move the coal to Fiddler's Ferry power station. So, that's upto 6 locomotive and 4 crews and each change took time. Whilst using the Hope Valley line would need 1 locomotive plus as many crews as necessary for the full route knowledge and to the rules on working hours.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 you are absolutely correct, which is exactly why my comment started ‘with the benefit of hindsight’. Your detailed description of the operation of the line’s main, and ultimately only traffic, with all the inefficiencies involved, surely again fits the description of ‘ if we had known this at the time we would not have electrified a single isolated line with this system, but waited forclass 20s or 37s to come along.”
@@brianwillson9567 let's unravel it. 1 the plan at the start of the electrification process was to have all the lines electrified at what was at the time the UK's standard for overhead electrification. This line was seen as the testbed. However, due to delays caused by a war that we knew was coming but not when it was overtaken by the new technology, which wasn't all that new as AC overhead electricity had been used by the LNWR since the early part of the 20th Century. As for the inefficiencies of the operation of the MGR trains, well they were over a decade away when this line opened and as the Beeching report states it took over 11 days for a wagon to go from loaded to loaded again, but although this is well known in the railway circles it's nor public knowledge and it won't be for over a half a decade. This is why the Modernisation Plan called for lots of white elephant marshalling yards that when opened never reached their design capacity. Then there was also no reason to suspect that the class 20s or 37s would be a success, that wouldn't be known for a few years yet.
A victim of short-termism.
WE LOT HAD A PHAT LITTLE WEIGH IN FROM ALL THE SCRAP AFTER THE TOSSERS CLOSED THE LINES