The Woodhead Route

[Southernman46]

Anybody noticed the significance of the loco in the above SUPERB photo - 76022 BR blue with lion & wheel logo

 

Superb thread - only ever experience this wonderful line from the 07:06 St Pancras - Manchester Piccadilly and the trip to Reddish North depot in the PM before return to London.

[Andy Louch]

Hi All,

 

Very many thanks for 'tidying' the photos. I must have a go at titivating them up myself! I have about 200 prints to scan in then about 4500 slides!!! Hence I need a decent scanner for the latter and about 6 months off work!

 

Incredible that I've had the photo of 76022 for 32 years and never noticed the old British Railways emblem!!!

 

Thanks again chaps,

 

Best wishes,

 

Andy

[Andy Louch]

Hi All,

 

Very many thanks for 'tidying' the photos. I must have a go at titivating them up myself! I have about 200 prints to scan in then about 4500 slides!!! Hence I need a decent scanner for the latter and about 6 months off work!

 

Incredible that I've had the photo of 76022 for 32 years and never noticed the old British Railways emblem!!!

 

Thanks again chaps,

 

Best wishes,

 

Andy

[Andy Louch]

Hi all,

 

Enthused by eastwestdivide and wessie sunset's efforts on my cr*ppy old prints have had a go at a few 40's taken at Guide Bridge on 10 October 1978.

Not sure how to add details to the prints but attached are:

 

40030, 40106, 40046,40145.

I'm amazed at what can be done with 30 year old prints!

 

With the better half watching 22 fully grown men kicking an inflated pigs bladder about (and it's the cricket season!!) I'm going to have a play with some more golden oldies!

 

Back to the scanner,

 

Andy

[eastwestdivide]

If you can find the negs, they usually age better than the prints, and they usually give a better starting point for tinkering with.

 

Somewhere I've also got Woodhead shots from just before closure (same trip as Southernman46 above), but I can't lay my hands on them right now. So much for the filing system. Watch this space.

[coachmann]

76022 & 76023 passing Crowden with westbound coal on 3rd July 1981....

Glossop-Manchester Class 506 crossing broadbottom Viaduct 2nd October 1981.....

25kv AC Class 303 306 on a Manchester-Hadfield working at the then new Godley station (opened 7th July 1986) on 15th October 1986....

Dinting station before the platform through which this train is passing was wrecked.....

76010 & 76016 passing Dinting with 6M50 from Rotherwood on final day of Woodhead 17th July 1981.

76028 & 76029 amid wreckage that stretched from here back to dinting Viaduct on 10th March 1981.....

 

Larry

[DerekEm8]

For those who did not know Guide Bridge it was a very busy Junction station with four Platforms plenty of freight workings

an engineers yard (still in existance) and a loco stabling point.

 

An idea of the trackwork as it was

 

40082 July 1981

 

76025 April 1981

 

Stabling point April 1981

 

The station now only has 2 platforms. The Manchester platform being bi-directional for the Stockport Junction.

The original signal box is now very isolated from the track.

 

66537 July 2004 Taken during Freighliner T+T diversions Stockport-Guide Bridge-Trafford Park and VV whilst Slade Lane junction was closed. Not usually this much FL container activity.

 

Most of the original buildings and platforms have gone and are now replaced by 'bus shelters,

37423 on Loco move from Crewe to K&WVR showing the bi-directional Manchester platform

Edited April 26, 2010 by DerekEm8

[woodenhead]

I don't remember it ever having 6 platforms, yes at Fairfield but not Guide Bridge which just had the 4 platforms.

[DerekEm8]

I don't remember it ever having 6 platforms, yes at Fairfield but not Guide Bridge which just had the 4 platforms.

 

Whooooops - You are quite right- (memo to self - engage brain before operating keyboard)

[eastwestdivide]

Bit late to the party, but lurking at the bottom of a cardboard box were these prints. Sunday 3/5/81, Reddish Depot, after catching the 0746 St Pancras-Manchester.

The journey back was I think in the trailing cab end of a Cravens unit with the blinds up, attached to the rear of a Transpennine unit, rocking and rolling through the Hope Valley.

 

 

Keep Reddish Tidy with 25150 and 40055

 

76038 + 76037, still ugly beggars, made out of girders like Irn-Bru. Are the overhead wires higher in the depot area?

 

A line of withdrawn ones, 76046-49-41-48

 

And a clean unit M59605M etc, in blue/grey - did they all get that livery? And what's Glossop (Central)? Only one station there surely?

[Gwiwer]

And a clean unit M59605M etc, in blue/grey - did they all get that livery?

 

Not all for sure - that might have been one of 3 or 4 which did. Indeed only one station at Glossop but I too recall seeing the "Central" destination. Back in the 70's when many places still had multiple stations or at least some sort of suffix it seemed perfectly normal .....

[Enterprisingwestern]

By sheer fluke I was only the second photographer on the spot after the derailment at Dinting in the 80's (an inspector told me the first photographer ran for his life when wagons started to climb the opposite platform)!

 

That was Roger Kaye.

[Southernman46]

My interest has been titilated - does anyone know what cause the Dinting derailment or is there a link to an accident report ??

 

and I bet someone knows the numbers of the wagon in the consist............

[coachmann]

I tried to work it out while there. I suspect some wagons at the rear of the train derailed coming off the viaduct and ran up the platform ramp. The brakevan was partway up there too. The train carried on of course after the coulings snapped but some derailed wagons must have brought more wagons off the rails on the curve beyond the overbridge, then the driver applied the brakes and the lot just started to run amock across three tracks. This is only my view although I'de probably find the correct story in back issues of Railway Mag. (I don't thing Rail Enthusiast was about at the time).

 

If wagons at the front of the train derailed and wrecked the track, this would also provide logical anwers too! I've got a full set of negs somewhere being priveleged to remain on the platform (try that today!!!)

[Suzie]

... Incidentally Manchester to Altrincham was converted yet again and is now 750Vdc as part of the Metrolink network.  Is three voltages on one line some kind of record?

Liverpool Street to Shenfield has had three different voltages, 1500V DC, 6.25KV AC and 25KV AC

 

 

 

[balders]

My interest has been titilated - does anyone know what cause the Dinting derailment or is there a link to an accident report ??

 

and I bet someone knows the numbers of the wagon in the consist............

 

 

I've got a locally produced publication which I picked up in the mid-80's in Hayfield, from a local newsagents, which covers the last few years of the route.

 

Main Line Across The Pennines (Woodhead in the shadows) by CM Corroy and AR Kaye (Lowlander Publications, Chatsworth Road, Chesterfield)

 

It was penned by the photographer of the above derailment. There is a great series of 11 photographs, from the initial wagon jumping the points on the Glossop line crossover, through to the devastation that ensued.

 

I can scan it, but not sure about infringement of copyright

 

If the author is on here, and gives permission, then i've no issues with scanning them!

 

4th wagon became derailed on pointwork (vac fitted MCV mineral wagon loaded with steel swarf from the looks of it, number isn't visible ) followed by the 22nd wagon doing exactly the same. No idea what this was although the consist mainly looks like MCV's and CovHops.

 

Loco's were 76028 and 76029, date 10/3/81. 8E46 7.30 Warrington-Tinsley freight.

 

Great little book. Not bad for £1.65.

 

 

 

Guy

[Suzie]

 

...The cost of building a new tunnel as recently as 1952 for barely 20 years use would have been seen as legitimate investment in those early BR days with then-new electrification and a "brave new World".  We cannot predict what technological change might occur over 20 years nor what changes there might be to traffic patterns.  

 

In the early '50s BR the nationalised railway was still very split into it's constituent companies and the investment programme was still that of the LNER from twenty years earlier when the modernisation was started. The Hope Valley route was LMS and therefore I am sure not a consideration with the traffic being predominantly from LNER locations and to LNER locations, therefore logical to go via the LNER route and it would have been thought silly to go via the LMS. Had there not been nationalisation I am sure things would have turned out very differently... EM2s on Sheffield - Manchester - Liverpool passenger services via the CLC route anyone? A major container port on Humberside with double headed EM1s to Trafford Park?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jamie92208]

 

76038 + 76037, still ugly beggars, made out of girders like Irn-Bru. Are the overhead wires higher in the depot area?

 

 

Yes the height of the wires varied quite a bit. They were usually high in station and depot areas and obviously low under bridges etc. I'm not certain but they were high in the station areas so that steam loco crews could access tender tops to trim coal and fill with water in safety. At Penistone the pairs of 76's used to roll as they came downgrade and the two sets of pantographs would be at quite an angle to each other as they came through the platforms with the pants very high.

 

 

Jamie

[Gwiwer]

pants very high

 

It might be a typo but the abbreviated term is "pans". I'm reminded of certain dress styles once seen (and not uncommonly in the heyday of Woodhead) where trousers with very high waistbands were worn with braces. A style sometimes referred to as "Harry high-pants" where I live.

 

I would agree with the reasoning behind having overhead wiring at the maximum height through stations, yards and depots in steam days. It would indeed be to ensure the safety of staff. At the time Woodhead was electrified the majority of all traction was steam and various staff members were required to clamber about loco and tender in the course of their duties and normal train working.

 

The same may be seen in images of SR classes (the locos sometimes referred to as class 70 and the later class 71) on the overhead. Images of Hither Green yard show the electrified sidings to have the wiring at the maximum and pans raised accordingly. There is also a published image of an SR electric, which were of not dissimilar design and vintage to the 76's and 77's, in the one-time siding at Balcombe with the contact wire similarly high.

[The Stationmaster]

 

 

And what's Glossop (Central)? Only one station there surely?

 

The second station to carry the name 'Glossop' had the suffix 'Central' from 1922 to 1974 (and although it is indeed 'central' that seems a bit pointless as the first station named 'Glossop' was closed in 1847 )

[DavidBelcher]

The second station to carry the name 'Glossop' had the suffix 'Central' from 1922 to 1974 (and although it is indeed 'central' that seems a bit pointless as the first station named 'Glossop' was closed in 1847 )

 

A bit of Googling seems to suggest that Dinting station was once known as Glossop Junction, which may also explain that one.

 

David

[DavidBelcher]

It might be a typo but the abbreviated term is "pans". I'm reminded of certain dress styles once seen (and not uncommonly in the heyday of Woodhead) where trousers with very high waistbands were worn with braces. A style sometimes referred to as "Harry high-pants" where I live.

 

Once seen? This style of trouser is being steadfastly maintained into the 21st Century by certain ITV talent show judges.

 

David

[DavidBelcher]

 

 

In the early '50s BR the nationalised railway was still very split into it's constituent companies and the investment programme was still that of the LNER from twenty years earlier when the modernisation was started. The Hope Valley route was LMS and therefore I am sure not a consideration with the traffic being predominantly from LNER locations and to LNER locations, therefore logical to go via the LNER route and it would have been thought silly to go via the LMS. Had there not been nationalisation I am sure things would have turned out very differently... EM2s on Sheffield - Manchester - Liverpool passenger services via the CLC route anyone? A major container port on Humberside with double headed EM1s to Trafford Park?

 

Extension of the wires to Manchester Central and Trafford Park was very seriously on the cards at one point, until the final plan for the Woodhead electrification was curtailed somewhat (concurrent with the initial order of 20-odd EM2s being scaled back). I've a reprint of an early 50s Combined Volume somewhere with the full compliment of locos given under the EM2 (marked as "to be introduced") listing.

 

David

[Michael Delamar]

Someone on the old rmweb a while back posted quite a few shots of the Dinting derailment.

 

Mike

[coachmann]

Probably me...I'll dig 'em out!