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What if Woodhead hadn't closed?


Jim76
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Thanks, Phil!

Do you know - I actually wondered if the Germanic electrification systems were set at 16 2/3 because that is exactly one third of 50! Might this be simply a coincidence?

I was wrong about the date of the American (New Haven RR) 11Kv system by the way - it was started in 1905!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Haven_EP-1

Note that this was a multi system loco! Amazing.

Cheers,

John.

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32 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

 

Therefore, that the LNER was/may have electrified routes other than Woodhead, would not have been a backward step!

 

 

The question however is where and when. If WW2 hadn't intervened then yes you could well have seen the ECML done at 1.5KVDC, but given the need to recover from WW2 then further electrification away from Woodhead may have been slow to get going. In that case its quite possible that the French research would have prompted a change to 25KV for new schemes (with maybe Woodhead converted in later years as the 25KV network expanded.

Edited by phil-b259
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33 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Thanks, Phil!

Do you know - I actually wondered if the Germanic electrification systems were set at 16 2/3 because that is exactly one third of 50! Might this be simply a coincidence?

I was wrong about the date of the American (New Haven RR) 11Kv system by the way - it was started in 1905!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Haven_EP-1

Note that this was a multi system loco! Amazing.

Cheers,

John.

 

The ease of generating the 'railway frequency' needed was obviously one of the considerations for the German pioneers - and going for 1/3rd of the developing 'standard 50Hz' made things relatively simple in conversion terms. I have no detailed information other than what I have read about the LBSCR system (which was German in origin).

 

Its a rather interesting topic when you start to delve a bit deeper* and one which will no doubt lots of study of electrical power theory to fully understand why it works  - but ultimately it all hinges on the ability to power a DC motor with an AC supply.

 

* This is a good place to start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_kV_AC_railway_electrification

Edited by phil-b259
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19 minutes ago, brack said:

Er, surely if WW1/grouping/depresssion/1926 general strike hadnt intervened the ECML would've been electrified at 1.5kVDC.

 

https://www.lner.info/locos/Electric/ee1.php

 

That is also true.

 

Both World Wars caused many investments and improvements to be cancelled on the railways and although they both bought about many technological advances, the after effects on the UK economy meant in many cases it was years before they could be been exploited, by which time other factors were at play.

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LBSC AC electrification was 25Hz the same as the American Pennsy and Newhaven systems but a lower voltage 5.6KV - half of the 11Kv then standard in the USA, later 22KV) probably due to bridge clearance problems. The 25Hz power generation was used to power the 750V DC system after conversion using rotary converter substations with a 25Hz AC motor driving a DC dynamo. I think that the Midland Lancaster system was 25Hz as well. These early low frequency systems were chosen so that synchronous AC motors could be used, especially applicable to 3-phase systems like the Italians had. 16 2/3Hz made for lower speed motors than 25Hz. 50Hz motors would be too fast and not enough starting torque to be fitted directly to the axle unless the wheels were tiny - too small to be practical. It was later found that DC motors could be made to work on the low frequency AC.

 

Post grouping the AC systems were not on the government approved list - there was only 1500V DC overhead, or 750V DC third rail so it was inevitable that Woodhead would be 1500V DC. It was not until the 1955 modernisation plan that operational 50Hz AC experience from the rest of the world (specifically South Africa, India, Turkey and France I believe) that 25Kv 50Hz was adopted to replace 1500V DC in the UK immediately following the completion of Woodhead as we know it, probably putting a spanner in the works for further expansion of 1500V DC at the time if it was likely it would have to be converted to AC at some point.

 

I am sure that had there been a much bigger extension of Woodhead that later conversion would still have used the EM2s but fitted with transformers and rectifiers, and the catenary would have remained the same apart from bigger insulators. Look at Luxemburg as an example where they are changing the insulators on the 3KV DC system ready to change over to 25KV AC but the wiring is all still the same so this might work if modelling a later 25KV Woodhead style system.

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As you say, and has already been mentioned, the conductors remained the same; only the insulators were changed. I could imagine the power draw has fallen well, with only one class 323 going up the hill every half-hour, rather than heavily-laden EM1s and EM2s.

 

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9 hours ago, Graham1960 said:

Back on Topic. Though WW2 did cause the rail system to be a mess, government still had to invest in the railways, as they did with the housing stock and road system. But what messed it up for the railways was the Tory party did not like investments in nationalised industry. They would give out massive grants to build concrete roads and houses, for these were done by private developers. Even though BR electrified the Woodhead route, undertaking a massive investment in the line. It quickly became clear to the powers that they simply wasted money doing so. So selling off perfectly good locos such as the EM2, which continue to run on other railways, was acceptable. At the end of the day It simply didn't matter if you spent lots of money on building something, it was just public money anyway. Probably done for political reasons too!  It only mattered on how much loss it was making. As the taxpayers did not like to see money wasted every year on something that had so much spent on it to get it right in the first place.  

So did BR really think that people simply wanted to go from Manchester to Sheffield and then they would make lots of money just from this service? 

I doubt it. I think the idea would have been this is the first stage in the electrification scheme that could have been extended to the North as well as the South and London. However somewhere along the way certain people either blocked future plans or made certain any future cash went to schemes which benefited the South of England. Perhaps to favour voters who voted for the Conservative Party.  

I wouldn't at all be surprised if the electrification scheme was much more extensive and they chopped it down, saying we have only this amount of money in the "tin" to do this now.

I have seen this happen in loads of instances in Local Government, where parts of the operation can attract government grants more than other departments. But instead of allowing rate payers money to give these departments bigger budgets. The treasury department simply takes into account the grants, so they get the same grant as last year, but with an allowance for inflation. While using the diverted rates to support the same budget of a department that got no grants.

British Rail probably operated on similar lines. Allowing grant funded money to cover the costs, not just of the projects, while diverting revenue money from Woodhead to subsidies loss making services in the London commuter area.  Till grant was lost and services started to loose money themselves. But they couldn't cut the loss making commuter services as the people on them voted Torry.       

 

I fear you are trying to apply 1980s political ideology several decades too early...

 

The Woodhead scheme was an inherited one - construction works started before WW2 meaning all BR had to do was dust off the plans and resume, much in the same way as the Central line extensions were. True in some cases there was some trimming of the schemes (dropping the wiring to Manchester central or the curtailing of the Central line at Ruslip rather than go on to Denham) but such actions did not affect the core of the schemes. In any case even though the key decision as to whether or not to continue was taken by a Labour Government, the subsequent Conservative administration did not intervene

 

More generally, while yes, the Conservative party has always favoured private business over state ones the real effects of this didn't show until Mrs Thatcher became leader and started an aggressive campaign of privatisations. Post war Britain was broke! there was no money to 'divert' away from the provinces* by any party - the whole point of the 1951 Festival of Britain was to try and draw a line under the austerity / rationing which had continued (and in some cases got worse) in the immediate post war years. By the time money was available to invest in a big way (aka the 1955 Modernisation plan), 25KV AC had proven itself as the new standard - and applying it to the WCML (which then, as now, was the busiest and most intensively used of our main lines) was seen as a far better use than extending an small, technically obsolete scheme between Sheffield and Manchester.

 

Had the LNER still been existence they would have not faired any better in terms of the after effects of WW1 and Woodhead would still have most likely remained an isolated scheme as the rise of the motor car decimated railway revenues and the consequent problems raising finance to undertake further mass electrification whatever the voltage.

 

* Note the final pre-war Southern electrification was finished in 1939. There was NO further electrification in the South East till the 1958 Kent Coast Phase 1 scheme went live.

 

 

 

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On 14/07/2020 at 00:58, Graham1960 said:

Back on Topic. Though WW2 did cause the rail system to be a mess, government still had to invest in the railways, as they did with the housing stock and road system. But what messed it up for the railways was the Tory party did not like investments in nationalised industry. They would give out massive grants to build concrete roads and houses, for these were done by private developers. Even though BR electrified the Woodhead route, undertaking a massive investment in the line. It quickly became clear to the powers that they simply wasted money doing so. So selling off perfectly good locos such as the EM2, which continue to run on other railways, was acceptable. At the end of the day It simply didn't matter if you spent lots of money on building something, it was just public money anyway. Probably done for political reasons too!  It only mattered on how much loss it was making. As the taxpayers did not like to see money wasted every year on something that had so much spent on it to get it right in the first place.  

So did BR really think that people simply wanted to go from Manchester to Sheffield and then they would make lots of money just from this service? 

I doubt it. I think the idea would have been this is the first stage in the electrification scheme that could have been extended to the North as well as the South and London. However somewhere along the way certain people either blocked future plans or made certain any future cash went to schemes which benefited the South of England. Perhaps to favour voters who voted for the Conservative Party.  

I wouldn't at all be surprised if the electrification scheme was much more extensive and they chopped it down, saying we have only this amount of money in the "tin" to do this now.

I have seen this happen in loads of instances in Local Government, where parts of the operation can attract government grants more than other departments. But instead of allowing rate payers money to give these departments bigger budgets. The treasury department simply takes into account the grants, so they get the same grant as last year, but with an allowance for inflation. While using the diverted rates to support the same budget of a department that got no grants.

British Rail probably operated on similar lines. Allowing grant funded money to cover the costs, not just of the projects, while diverting revenue money from Woodhead to subsidies loss making services in the London commuter area.  Till grant was lost and services started to loose money themselves. But they couldn't cut the loss making commuter services as the people on them voted Torry.       

No sorry, the Tory mantra of "Private good, public bad" only came later, as Phil says with the change of ideology that came after 1979 with Mrs. Thatcher.

 

Think about it, there were no significant de-nationalisations in the Tory regimes of 1951 - 64 (Churchill, Eden, MacMillan, Douglas- Home), nor in 1970 - 74 (Heath). I think the only one was an option for former owners of Road haulage businesses to buy them back from British Road Services, some did, some didn't.

 

Wrong as well to say there was no significant investment in the nationalised industries. Huge amounts were spent on the Coal industry in refurbishing run down mines plus new ones such as Bevercotes in Nottinghamshire. The railways had the Modernisation Plan for motive power, and the programme of new super Marshalling Yards, sadly both plans were to a greater or lesser extent very wasteful indeed.

 

If you want a rant about the evils of the Tories, please do - I'd agree with some of it. But be clear about the ideological history, and also be clear that corruption and waste seem to have been part and parcel of most political regimes, whatever the label.

 

John.

Edited by John Tomlinson
typo - thanks Graham
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1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

I fear you are trying to apply 1980s political ideology several decades too early...

 

The Woodhead scheme was an inherited one - construction works started before WW2 meaning all BR had to do was dust off the plans and resume, much in the same way as the Central line extensions were. True in some cases there was some trimming of the schemes (dropping the wiring to Manchester central or the curtailing of the Central line at Ruslip rather than go on to Denham) but such actions did not affect the core of the schemes. In any case even though the key decision as to whether or not to continue was taken by a Labour Government, the subsequent Conservative administration did not intervene

 

More generally, while yes, the Conservative party has always favoured private business over state ones the real effects of this didn't show until Mrs Thatcher became leader and started an aggressive campaign of privatisations. Post war Britain was broke! there was no money to 'divert' away from the provinces* by any party - the whole point of the 1951 Festival of Britain was to try and draw a line under the austerity / rationing which had continued (and in some cases got worse) in the immediate post war years. By the time money was available to invest in a big way (aka the 1955 Modernisation plan), 25KV AC had proven itself as the new standard - and applying it to the WCML (which then, as now, was the busiest and most intensively used of our main lines) was seen as a far better use than extending an small, technically obsolete scheme between Sheffield and Manchester.

 

Had the LNER still been existence they would have not faired any better in terms of the after effects of WW1 and Woodhead would still have most likely remained an isolated scheme as the rise of the motor car decimated railway revenues and the consequent problems raising finance to undertake further mass electrification whatever the voltage.

 

* Note the final pre-war Southern electrification was finished in 1939. There was NO further electrification in the South East till the 1958 Kent Coast Phase 1 scheme went live.

 

 

 

I have read somewhere that both the Kent Coast and Bournemouth electrification schemes were SR schemes pre-1939, but , as you say, WW2 put a stop to any investment for years.

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51 minutes ago, Graham1960 said:

Are you really telling me that the Torry party was in favour of nationalisation even in the 50's, 60's and 70's? 

Of course they were not going to change it back in those early years. What private companies would even wanted to run the railways back then? Especially the cost of modernisation would needed to be found. That didn't mean that when BR went cap in hand to the Conservative government they would be looked on favourably. Especially as the powerful rail unions did not fund the Torry party. Indeed you could argue that the strikes of the 70's which brought down Heath, were a good enough reason for the T woman, who was in his office at the time, would turn against the Nationalised industries. As they especially ASLEF were the driving force in the strikes.

I never said there was no significant investment in them.

On the otherhand the Tory party was at the leading edge of the road building program. Didn't they appoint the man who paid to build roads such as the new motorways, the Minister for Transport? That tells you all you need to know about what the parties thought about the railways.   

As I said, if you want a rant then have fun. Don't let it get in the way of historical fact.

 

John.

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Trying to get back to topic, and a shameless plug for my website, I recently scanned a load of Woodhead electric pictures from the late '70's. Clicking on any one of them, then the Album link at right referenced "The Woodhead Route" will show the lot.

 

I hope this works,    https://www.flickr.com/photos/51265696@N03

 

John.

Edited by John Tomlinson
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14 hours ago, Graham1960 said:

However somewhere along the way certain people either blocked future plans or made certain any future cash went to schemes which benefited the South of England. Perhaps to favour voters who voted for the Conservative Party.  

 

Not sure that the Glasgow suburban electrification schemes particularly benefitted the Tory party, nor the WCML which serves, among other places, Manchester, Liverpool, Stoke etc.

 

I don't know how many times it has to be said, the reason Woodhead closed was because in 1981 BR was under severe financial pressure (yes, under a Tory Government) and there was insufficient traffic to justify all the Transpennine routes. Therefore, as Woodhead had already lost its passenger service, and its remaining core freight traffic was both very inefficient to handle and could be diverted elsewhere, sadly it had to go.

 

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6 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

As I said, if you want a rant then have fun. Don't let it get in the way of historical fact.

 

Agreed - The Big Four certainly weren't pleading to be taken over by the taxpayer, the impending Nationalisation of the railways was criticised by almost everyone in 1947, but the government did it anyway.   Just as they did for Railways Act of 1995.

 

Oh and it's the "Tory" party (one R)........

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14 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

Trying to get back to topic, and a shameless plug for my website, I recently scanned a load of Woodhead electric pictures from the late '70's. Clicking on any one of them, then the Album link at right referenced "The Woodhead Route" will show the lot.

 

I hope this works,    https://www.flickr.com/photos/51265696@N03

 

John.

Great photographs John, I had seen them before and already 'faved'.

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6 hours ago, Jim76 said:

Great photographs John, I had seen them before and already 'faved'.

That's very kind Jim, thanks.

 

I was pretty lucky on my trips up there and usually managed days with decent light and quite a lot of action. Another chap I knew at the time had several goes and on nearly all of them found nothing happening, wires down or whatever! The surprising thing was that I only ever met one other lineside photographer up there, given the threat of closure hung for several years, the place would have been packed in later times. It was a different regime then as well, no one bothered much if you were inside the fence and a cheery wave was very common from the drivers.

 

One thing one became aware of was the dependence on the MGR coal traffic to Fiddlers Ferry, and non-MGR trains were a bit of a bonus, certainly welcome variety. The decision to allow purchase of foreign coal at lower prices for this traffic coming into Liverpool really was the final blow, as the residual traffic could easily be accomodated elsewhere. People also forget that de-industrialisation, in the sense of Lenin's Commanding Heights, had been going on in Britain for a long time, arguably since the '30's and certainly since the late '50's, so all of the traditional flows were in decline anyway. Without winding people up any more, the Thatcher government simply turbocharged that process by moving to a market based economy. I have a Working Timetable for the line in 1958, close on 100 trains a day each way through the tunnel, which I guess explains better than anything why electrification looked a good bet when it was built!

 

John.

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Presumably there was no technical reason why the Woodhead couldn't be converted to 25kV, if it was found to be worth retaining - after all, the GE/LTS 1500V systems were changed to AC (IIRC the interim 6.25kV even used the same OLE infrastructure/clearances as 1500V)

 

Another issue which didn't help the Railways was the strike in 1955 which lost a lot of goods traffic to road hauliers, never to return, especially as they could offer a true door-to-door service

Edited by keefer
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  • 2 years later...
On 09/06/2020 at 11:28, caradoc said:

Manchester/Sheffield in 35 minutes ? Possibly, but only to a rebuilt Sheffield Victoria, which is not exactly handy for the city centre, and has poor bus and no tram connections, nor connection to any other train service; So the trains would have to run through to Midland anyway, requiring as you say either a new rail link, which would not be cheap, at all, or a time-consuming reversal.

 

I have a recollection that Sheffield Victoria had a train service by DMUs to and from the direction of Doncaster,  does anyone have any details of the timetable, such as number of trains per day, and when the direct service was withdrawn?  The withdrawal year may have been the early 1960s.

it was a trek to walk from Sheffield Midland to Sheffield Victoria,  I believe the plans included a line to link  the two stations, but was never constructed, the land for the link may have been of protected status for many years, does anyone have a map showing the route of the Midland to Victoria link?

Edited by Pandora
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On 14/07/2020 at 10:57, phil-b259 said:

 

The Woodhead scheme was an inherited one - construction works started before WW2 meaning all BR had to do was dust off the plans and resume.

 

The BTC had an inheritance of three projects from the  LNER, 1) Woodhead, 2)  electrification out of London Liverpool Street, 3) the Kings Cross to Newcastle express  passenger diesel project, new diesel depots at London and Newcastle to service the fleet,  two projects resumed as you state but with revision,  the order for the fleet of 30 or so EM2 Woodhead locos  trimmed to 7, an abdication of an intention to further the cause of Woodhead .  The diesel project was quietly dropped,  replaced with  order for a  third batch of the Peppercorn A1 locos to make good the lost diesels, ,  had the LNER  diesel project gone ahead,  BR Eastern Region would have pioneered  mainline electric and mainline diesel operation, years  in advance of the BR Pilot scheme of the late 1950s

Edited by Pandora
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  • 5 weeks later...

Possibly the best place to put this, it seems the final part of the east side of the Woodhead main line will lose it's freight traffic from the end of this month, not counting the short distance at Penistone 

DB's contract for rail haulage to Stocksbridge hasn't been renewed and everything will apparently be going by road. The steelworks has been for sale for some time and not that many trains run I understand. 

Given the upheavals over the last 41 years since closure as a through route I suppose it's done well to hang on as long as it has.

Coincidentally I believe one of the local road hauliers who moved a lot of steel products has also closed recently. 

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On 26/09/2022 at 12:30, great central said:

Possibly the best place to put this, it seems the final part of the east side of the Woodhead main line will lose it's freight traffic from the end of this month, not counting the short distance at Penistone 

DB's contract for rail haulage to Stocksbridge hasn't been renewed and everything will apparently be going by road. The steelworks has been for sale for some time and not that many trains run I understand. 

Given the upheavals over the last 41 years since closure as a through route I suppose it's done well to hang on as long as it has.

Coincidentally I believe one of the local road hauliers who moved a lot of steel products has also closed recently. 

 

No doubt the line will sit derelict for 10-20 years whilst various bodies say "it'd be great to see it reopen to passengers!", and x-number of expensive studies will be repeatedly commisioned to prove the point... meanwhile the track will degenerate to the stage it needs many millions spending on it to bring it up to snuff...  and the steelworks will be dropped as quickly as possible to avoid any risk of the Government having to save and fund it as a sensible strategic asset, and a housing estate will be rapidly built on the site, sold off the environmental promise of demolished material going out by rail/a new station serving the houses, none of which will in the event materialise.

 

Cynical, me? ;) 

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