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What if Woodhead hadn't closed?


Jim76
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How much longer would it have remained open? Would it have closed following the miners strike anyway or would it have remained open long enough to be converted to 25k V AC possibly as part of a link to the ECML? What would the route look like today - would we be seeing a return of passenger services? Or this all just wishful thinking...?

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Wishful thinking, it was a route that became redundant because the whole industrial landscape of the UK was changing.

 

You can blame politicians, miners or BR but at the end of the day it was a route with one purpose and that purpose was ebbing away fast.

 

Is the alternative Hope Valley route that bad that it needed a second route, no, nearly 40 years has passed and there is still no economic case for a Woodhead route

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Was the route not closed to make way for the M67 - or purely to make savings for BR - or both? I worked with an engineer who was once responsible for the route. He said 'it looked after itself' and that the reasoning the equipment was life expired 'a nonsense'. Both the infrastructure and locos were all in good working order at the time of closure.

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The woodhead route served nowhere save Manchester and Sheffield - the HV line served some prosperous villages, where people with "voices" lived - Plenty of talk to keep the HV line open.

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I don't think the issue would be so much with the curvature - more structural and overhead clearances. I doubt it would ever happen sadly. What is the current status of EM2 1501 Diana? I understand at one point there was a plan to export the remaining Class 76s for use at the port of Rotterdam. Requests to BR from NS at the time went unanswered...

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I agree with Woodenhead and Dutch Master; The line closed due to lack of traffic (what remained could be, or already had been, accommodated elsewhere) and inefficient working in changed traffic patterns.

 

Regarding passenger traffic, for me the Achilles heel of the Woodhead route was the lack of direct access to Sheffield Midland; When BR decided to concentrate passenger trains on one station (better by far both for passengers and efficiency), it could only be Midland and Victoria was doomed.

 

Regarding freight, by the time Woodhead closed the major, if not only, flow of coal (its lifeblood since opening) was MGR trains direct from pit to power station. After the line closed these ran with one diesel loco throughout, whereas via Woodhead required loco changes at Wath or Rotherwood, and again at Mottram or Godley, (plus if coming from Wath, bankers - 4 locos to move one train) with all the additional costs of more locos, crew and yards. 

 

The route via Woodhead was a fantastic railway and I loved visiting places such as Reddish and Wath, however in changing circumstances the line was simply no longer required.

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In partial response to Jim76's original question; There are regular calls to re-open Woodhead for passenger services, but the question would then be, for what routes ? The express services currently linking Manchester and Sheffield are the hourly East Midlands Liverpool/Norwich and hourly TransPennine (TPE) Manchester Airport/Cleethorpes. If these were diverted via Woodhead, they would cease to serve Stockport, and to serve Sheffield Midland would have to reverse at Nunnery Jc, losing some of the probable time saved by going via Woodhead. In the case of the TPE trains these would then need to reverse again at Midland; Alternatively they could serve a rebuilt Victoria and continue via the old Great Central route towards Doncaster, at the expense of destroying connections at Sheffield.  

 

Alternatively, might there come a time when Manchester/Sheffield traffic levels would justify a dedicated service via Woodhead, in addition to the existing trains via the Hope Valley ? Personally I doubt it, and in any case the same station issue would still arise at Sheffield.

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You could actually put a link in from nunnery curve to the site of Victoria station to avoid reversal, but it would require the demolition of the parkway bridge over it as the pillars would be in the way. Then you would have the problem that the north exit from midland is near to capacity already. There has been calls for a more frequent passinger trains between Sheffield and Manchester but the hope valley line is near to capacity already, with most of the gaps reserved for freight paths. If you could solve these problems the woodhead line would give you at least a 20 min time saving. Missing out Stockport would not be a big problem, as the main use is for changing trains there instead of Manchester.

 

If you could reopen the line with direct access to midland, with 100mph running, you could have a 30 to 35 min journey time and a service of 2 trains hour man to notts, man to hunberside, and there has been proposals for a man to derby service.

 

Some of these ex GC lines could have a much better service with minimal costs, but they seem to be ignored and frozen in the state they were in 1980. The line from Sheffield to Lincoln and via brig to barnetby is a 60mph railway so the passinger trains could fit in between the coal trains, which have now gone. 158s used on these services and moving some signals would enable big time savings. It might even make a Lincoln to man service possible.

 

Ther is scope for improving train services, and re opening the woodhead would bring big savings in time as well as more capacity. The problem is that the railways we have now have not looked at any improvements and winning more traffic or cutting journey times since the tilting trains came to the WCML. It is all about managing the status quo and keeping things as is. You can have new trains, but they will be running to old times and any journey time cuts will be used as padding to make the on time figures better.

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I fully agree with what everyone is saying. Particularly with regard to today's situation. I just wonder had it not closed in 1981 what would have happened? I personally suspect it would have closed following the miners strike. Another possibility if the overhead equipment was 'life expired' may have been dieselisation for a few years (Class 56s did indeed run on the line prior to closure). Could the line have then formed a basis for heritage operations? It might, had it then survived have had the potential for reinstatement of a fast passenger services at some point in the future but personally I can't see that happening unless the line forms part of the proposed HS3 alignment.

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And of they had kept the through route open it would have formed a good route for the freight traffic from manchester the march, instead of sending all the freight via the north London lines and the increasingly buy radial routes into and out of London.

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Was the route not closed to make way for the M67 - or purely to make savings for BR - or both? 

The original proposals for the Mottram, Hollingworth and Tintwistle Bypass included an option for continuing from the end of the M67 to Woolley Bridge then taking the line of the old Waterside Branch from Pear Tree Crossing at Hadfield through to the site of Bridge Mill at Tintwistle. This would have put the road in an easy position to use the Woodhead trackbed as the basis for an extension towards Sheffield. The Stocksbridge Bypass which links to the M1 at J35A on the other side of the hill was designed so that it could be fairly easily converted to a motorway and extended to meet the Woodhead line at Hazelhead Station then turning towards Dunford Bridge. This . The Men from the Ministry were also very keen at the time to build an all-weather route across the Pennines and one option for this was to take one lane through the tunnel to Dunford Bridge and use it in each direction alternately if the road across the top via Salters Brook and the Woodhead summit was closed due to bad weather.

 

 

Some of these ex GC lines could have a much better service with minimal costs, but they seem to be ignored and frozen in the state they were in 1980. The line from Sheffield to Lincoln and via brig to barnetby is a 60mph railway so the passinger trains could fit in between the coal trains, which have now gone. 158s used on these services and moving some signals would enable big time savings. It might even make a Lincoln to man service possible.

 

:offtopic: 

I'm not sure that the 158s would give any timing advantage. Being geared for a higher top speed is usually not good for the acceleration. On a project i was involved with many years ago, when we used the performance graphs to help in checking capacity and optimum speeds on a line we found that unless stops were approaching 20 miles apart a 156 could do better times on the line than a 158. We worked out that from a standing start the 158 would take about 15 miles to catch the 156, and the braking distance was longer.

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I'm not sure that the 158s would give any timing advantage. Being geared for a higher top speed is usually not good for the acceleration. On a project i was involved with many years ago, when we used the performance graphs to help in checking capacity and optimum speeds on a line we found that unless stops were approaching 20 miles apart a 156 could do better times on the line than a 158. We worked out that from a standing start the 158 would take about 15 miles to catch the 156, and the braking distance was longer.

I recall several years back now the ScotRail franchise at the time had the opportunity to swap their Class 158s with Class 156s from an operator south of the border. This was in the early days of Transport Scotland and the government rejected the deal on account of the Class 158 higher top speed and air conditioning as this would be a loss - even though that top speed cannot always be realised and the air conditioning can be less than effective on warm days even in Scotland. The Class 156 being a far more suitable train for many of the Scottish routes and would've allowed the fleets to be standardised. I always think this was a short sighted and massive missed opportunity for Scotland.

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While new 25KV substations would have been required, and the insulators changing, the wiring otherwise should have been good enough to last until now as the Great Eastern has done. The route is short so I suspect there would not need to be many substations anyway from the current limit of 25KV to Sheffield so not as big a cost as might be thought to convert.

 

Woodhead might have fared better had the electrification gone all the way to Liverpool (to serve the user of the coal) initially and there would have been an immediate option to operate electric trains for passengers using the line capacity vacated by coal trains from Liverpool to Sheffield via Manchester and the electrification could have been extended to Doncaster and Lincoln. The loss of the coal traffic came a decade too soon to see the potential increase in ridership.

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Well the bit from Piccadilly to Glossop & Hadfield was converted without any apparent problems or undue expense.

 

plenty of Electricity at Woodhead also (then & now) !!!.

 

Brit15

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...Nowadays, my preference, should the 1500V DC system be abolished, would be the 15kV AC system, so our main transport links (to Germany) would be served better. Alas, the EEEWWWW decreed any new system must be 25kV AC instead. :rolleyes:

 

16Hz AC is just as legacy as DC nowadays. Any new AC system needs to be industrial frequency (50Hz in Europe) to make sense, and the difference between 15KV and 25KV is easily managed. Any new AC loco will be built with 25KV capability so there will be no issues. German trains have to change to 25KV at the borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, France etc. so connecting to the Netherlands will be just much of the same.

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Well the bit from Piccadilly to Glossop & Hadfield was converted without any apparent problems or undue expense.

 

plenty of Electricity at Woodhead also (then & now) !!!.

 

Brit15

The insulators on the Glossop line were renewed over a period of about 9 months prior to the changeover in December 1984. Preparations would also have been made for changes to the feeding arrangements, together with any return conductors or earth wires needed. The actual switch from DC to AC only took about 3 days. The old 33KV Feeder Cables that linked the DC substations were then recovered. We joked at the time that BR would probably make a profit on the job if they managed to get out the old stuff before the copper fairies struck. 

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16Hz AC is just as legacy as DC nowadays. Any new AC system needs to be industrial frequency (50Hz in Europe) to make sense, and the difference between 15KV and 25KV is easily managed. Any new AC loco will be built with 25KV capability so there will be no issues. German trains have to change to 25KV at the borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, France etc. so connecting to the Netherlands will be just much of the same.

 

I believe the reason the Germans adopted the rather unusual frequency of 16Hz is exactly the same reason the LBSCR used a low frequency AC voltage when it electrified the South London Line - namely you can power a DC traction motor from it without rectifying it to DC first!

 

DC electrifications only thrived because of technical limitations - they are incredibly inefficient. DC electrification only survived for as long as it did thanks to the inability to shrink AC- DC rectifiers small enough to fit on board locomotives until he 1960s, plus going for a low frequency AC supply as per the Germans and the LBSCR did was quite complicated when national electricity grids decided to standardise on 50Hz in the 1930s.

 

Countries with extensive DC electrification schemes kept what they had - but in recent decades many have done what the French did in the 60s, abandon DC electrification for new projects and go for AC with dual voltage locos constructed as necessary.

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Throwing this into the pot:

 

If BR had been able to close the S&C when they wanted to, would we be having the same discussion about that line? And what would be the arguments for and against?

 

Andi

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But even if Woodhead had survived into the "renaissance era", the 1500V DC system would have shown its limitations fairly quickly, as it now does on the intensively used Dutch network. There is serious talk of 'upgrading' the system to 3kV, as that would half the current and thus considerably cut heat losses in the OH-wiring. IMO, the DC system had its day, it was selected in 1923-ish as the new national system for NS after extensive research by NS officials abroad, but the then current (sic :P ) issues of control and suitability of the AC system favoured the DC system. Nowadays, my preference, should the 1500V DC system be abolished, would be the 15kV AC system, so our main transport links (to Germany) would be served better. Alas, the EEEWWWW decreed any new system must be 25kV AC instead. :rolleyes:

 

 

National electricity grids use the highest possible AC voltages for their core network precisely to remove transmission losses - and the same is true for railways.

 

Under Ohms law to get the same amount of power output under 15KV as you do under 25KV, more current is required - which in requires bigger conductors, grater heat losses, etc. 25KV has a long history of working well as a railway supply voltage so its perfectly logical to use this as the 'standard' voltage for new schemes. Also given the domestic and commercial electricity supply across Europe has been standardised at 50Hz, its perfectly logical to demand that future railway electrification should be of the 50Hz type.

 

Given one of the core principles of the EU is to dismantle barriers that act against the freedom of movement - (be they legal or technical) across the union, the adoption of 25LV, 50HZ AC as the 'standard' for railway electrification is thus entirely appropriate.

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Even the USA with its legacy of 3KV DC and 11/22KV 25Hz is using 25KV at 60Hz for new installations. Industrial frequency AC is the way forward.

 

I guess the way to keep low frequency AC locos going in the future will be to fit them with new transformers, and to keep DC locos going is to fit them with transformers and rectifiers as was done in the UK in the early '60s with the class 306 and 307 EMUs.

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I seem to remember that Dr Beeching put in his report that the Woodhead route should be extended and better use made of it.  As pointed out, traffic was being diverted away, the GC London extension closed and passenger traffic withdrawn but had it been built with 25Kv AC instead of 1500V DC, could it have survived until the EMCL was electrified and become a more useful cross Pennine route?

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5 hours ago, jools1959 said:

I seem to remember that Dr Beeching put in his report that the Woodhead route should be extended and better use made of it.  As pointed out, traffic was being diverted away, the GC London extension closed and passenger traffic withdrawn but had it been built with 25Kv AC instead of 1500V DC, could it have survived until the EMCL was electrified and become a more useful cross Pennine route?

Probably not. The DfT roads people whatever they were called at the time were determined to get a link from the Denton and Hyde Bypass (aka M67) to the Stocksbridge Bypass section of the A616 and J35A of the M1. I even have some official maps on proposed routes for the next section somewhere showing an option to cross the A57 at Woolley Bridge, follow the old Waterside Branch from Pear Tree Crossing to Tintwistle Bridge then climb past Padfield. This would then need a completely new road to the south of the Longdendale Reservoirs up to Woodhead. Only decent alignment available? Yes, lets concrete over the railway.

It was never built as even the road-centric Ministry couldn't fiddle the sums enough to get it past the pipe-dream stage.

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When the Stockbridge bypass was being built there were placards along the M1 advertising something rather ludicrously called the "Liverpool to Skegness trunk road". The M67 hasn't been built because it incoveniently would have to go through the Peak national park.

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