would the woodhead route have survived if never modernised ?

[peanuts]

pub discussion tuther day would the Woodhead route have survived beaching and still be open and prospering today if it had never been electrified and "modernised " ?

[MarkC]

21 minutes ago, peanuts said:

pub discussion tuther day would the Woodhead route have survived beaching and still be open and prospering today if it had never been electrified and "modernised " ?

I say no, simply because its raison d'etre, freight traffic, would still have gone, and the alternative routes with the capacity for the residual transpennine rail freight are still available. In addition to that, it wasn't a particularly fast route and there's no local traffic, or potential for it, between Hadfield & Penistone.

 

To perhaps open another topic though - in hindsight it might have been better to rebuild the London Extension, opening it out to Berne Gauge, for HS operation as the CTRL was also being built, then use the Woodhead route & then CLC to access Manchester & Liverpool. Going north, the S & C would be the obvious candidate, & then either the G & SW or the Waverley route, to access the Scottish Central Belt.

 

 

[russ p]

It may have actually closed earlier as the state of the original tunnels was pretty bad . When electrification was originally proposed the old tunnels were to have a contractor bar to get clearance but the condition of one of them was deemed unsuitable so the new tunnel was built something that probably wouldn't have happened without modernisation 

[DY444]

1 hour ago, russ p said:

It may have actually closed earlier as the state of the original tunnels was pretty bad . When electrification was originally proposed the old tunnels were to have a contractor bar to get clearance but the condition of one of them was deemed unsuitable so the new tunnel was built something that probably wouldn't have happened without modernisation 

 

Indeed. 

 

I suppose it's possible they could have built a new tunnel suitable for steam and continued as before but then the issue would have been what to do when steam finished.  Shifting the same tonnage as the 76s did over those gradients, especially when MGRs came in, would have tied up a lot of diesel locomotives.  47s, for example, were in high demand in the early and mid-70s so you'd probably be looking at lots of 20s/31s/37s from the ER and/or 25s/40s from the LMR.  The costs of that might have doomed it early anyway if going via Diggle or the Hope Valley could be done with fewer locomotives.

 

I think an interesting related question is what would have happened if it had been electrified say 5-7 years later?  It would most likely have been done at 25kV (maybe even as a test bed in lieu of the Styal line given the Manchester connection) and would thus almost certainly have survived beyond 1981 and maybe still be open today (especially if a spur had been built to allow direct running into Sheffield Midland). 

[woodenhead]

2 hours ago, MarkC said:

I say no, simply because its raison d'etre, freight traffic, would still have gone, and the alternative routes with the capacity for the residual transpennine rail freight are still available. In addition to that, it wasn't a particularly fast route and there's no local traffic, or potential for it, between Hadfield & Penistone.

 

To perhaps open another topic though - in hindsight it might have been better to rebuild the London Extension, opening it out to Berne Gauge, for HS operation as the CTRL was also being built, then use the Woodhead route & then CLC to access Manchester & Liverpool. Going north, the S & C would be the obvious candidate, & then either the G & SW or the Waverley route, to access the Scottish Central Belt.

 

 

Which was the proposal of a company in the 1990s to build a route from the channel to the north to piggyback trailers from the continent and get them off the M6.

 

Then some other chap came along later and proposed something similar but just to remove lorries from the M1/M62 and Woodhead piggybacking between Sheffield and somewhere near Hadfield.

 

Interestingly in recent years there was the idea floated of a 25kv freigh spine from the south coast to the north for this very purpose, just seems to have got lost in various funding cuts as electrification became a 'nice to have' over bi-mode.

 

13 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

Indeed. 

 

I suppose it's possible they could have built a new tunnel suitable for steam and continued as before but then the issue would have been what to do when steam finished.  Shifting the same tonnage as the 76s did over those gradients, especially when MGRs came in, would have tied up a lot of diesel locomotives.  47s, for example, were in high demand in the early and mid-70s so you'd probably be looking at lots of 20s/31s/37s from the ER and/or 25s/40s from the LMR.  The costs of that might have doomed it early anyway if going via Diggle or the Hope Valley could be done with fewer locomotives.

 

I think an interesting related question is what would have happened if it had been electrified say 5-7 years later?  It would most likely have been done at 25kV (maybe even as a test bed in lieu of the Styal line given the Manchester connection) and would thus almost certainly have survived beyond 1981 and maybe still be open today (especially if a spur had been built to allow direct running into Sheffield Midland). 

Don't forget that despite electrification, the Woodhead freight was only electric traction over part of the journey - it served Sheffield & Wath to Manchester, everything going beyond or starting beyond those fringes needed at least one change in traction - electrifying to Tinsley in the 1960s took out one change in traction at the sheffield end and was a good idea.  But the MGR services for example had to swap to diesel to enter collieries and to get to the western destinations - so full trains changed at Mottram, empties at Godley Junction and all trains from Dewsnap had to change traction for onward trip workings (except for Ashburys).

 

So those 47s could have done longer circuits all the way from colliery to Fiddlers Ferry, it would still of course needed more, but not a whole class more.  What it would not have been is pretty, the reason d'tre for electrification was two fold - test 1500v DC and save money on crews with a bit extra for alleviating stress and health issues on working heavily working steam engines.  Replacing that with diesels would have been as polluting as steam, not pleasant for anyone.

 

I think that choosing 1500V DC was the simplest choice at a point where something needed to be done and it was all planned, ready to cook to coin a phrase so a straight forward choice, whereas, 25Kv AC was probably the future but further ahead than anticipated at the point pen was put to paper on Woodhead, then things move quickly and it was out of date as soon as it was completed.  It didn't matter though, the purpose of the electrification was the cost savings of moving freight, the passenger element was a side benefit at best and once it became clear 25Kv was the future and the GC mainline was to be wound down then the Woodhead became a closed freight system that would eek out it's time until it was no longer needed.  Even as a 25Kv system it would still have been isolated unless BR had decided to keep the GC and electrify down to London - but that would have been a very different BR to the one we saw which was losing money and needed to close duplicated routes.  Certainly BR would not have chosen the GC route over the WCML for electrification so it would be both or just the WCML.   Sheffield Midland and the Midland route in general at that point was a long long way from any decision to electrify, the ECML would always have been above it, so again even at 25Kv AC Woodhead would have been an arm of electrification and still needing traction changes at the same points.

[MarkC]

3 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Which was the proposal of a company in the 1990s to build a route from the channel to the north to piggyback trailers from the continent and get them off the M6.

 

Then some other chap came along later and proposed something similar but just to remove lorries from the M1/M62 and Woodhead piggybacking between Sheffield and somewhere near Hadfield.

 

Interestingly in recent years there was the idea floated of a 25kv freigh spine from the south coast to the north for this very purpose, just seems to have got lost in various funding cuts as electrification became a 'nice to have' over bi-mode.

 

Don't forget that despite electrification, the Woodhead freight was only electric traction over part of the journey - it served Sheffield & Wath to Manchester, everything going beyond or starting beyond those fringes needed at least one change in traction - electrifying to Tinsley in the 1960s took out one change in traction at the sheffield end and was a good idea.  But the MGR services for example had to swap to diesel to enter collieries and to get to the western destinations - so full trains changed at Mottram, empties at Godley Junction and all trains from Dewsnap had to change traction for onward trip workings (except for Ashburys).

 

So those 47s could have done longer circuits all the way from colliery to Fiddlers Ferry, it would still of course needed more, but not a whole class more.  What it would not have been is pretty, the reason d'tre for electrification was two fold - test 1500v DC and save money on crews with a bit extra for alleviating stress and health issues on working heavily working steam engines.  Replacing that with diesels would have been as polluting as steam, not pleasant for anyone.

 

I think that choosing 1500V DC was the simplest choice at a point where something needed to be done and it was all planned, ready to cook to coin a phrase so a straight forward choice, whereas, 25Kv AC was probably the future but further ahead than anticipated at the point pen was put to paper on Woodhead, then things move quickly and it was out of date as soon as it was completed.  It didn't matter though, the purpose of the electrification was the cost savings of moving freight, the passenger element was a side benefit at best and once it became clear 25Kv was the future and the GC mainline was to be wound down then the Woodhead became a closed freight system that would eek out it's time until it was no longer needed.  Even as a 25Kv system it would still have been isolated unless BR had decided to keep the GC and electrify down to London - but that would have been a very different BR to the one we saw which was losing money and needed to close duplicated routes.  Certainly BR would not have chosen the GC route over the WCML for electrification so it would be both or just the WCML.   Sheffield Midland and the Midland route in general at that point was a long long way from any decision to electrify, the ECML would always have been above it, so again even at 25Kv AC Woodhead would have been an arm of electrification and still needing traction changes at the same points.

Indeed so; great adding of meat to the bones, as it were - but an issue with the new Woodhead Tunnel, when considering diesel traction, was that there were no ventilation shafts, so as I recall it, only 1 diesel hauled train/hour was officially permitted.

 

Mark

[Anadin Dogwalker]

I had always assumed that the wires would go east to Retford and join up with a 1500v KX-Doncaster/Leeds electrification, hence the proposed 27 EM2s.This would have only lasted a year ( on paper) between the 55 Modernisation plan and the adoption of AC. The allocation of all 40 AL5s for construction at Doncaster (and more AL6s) was the last vestige of wiring the ECML before the 80s.

For the 76s, I wonder if it was at all possible to transplant a fixed output (ie no tap changer) transformer and rectifier pack into the space occupied by the steam heat boiler and tanks (or ballast weight in the majority) but otherwise retain the original DC control gear- but I think the air compressor and reservoirs on the dual/air conversions used some if not all of the space available. The principal is sound as it's how the SNCF  wired a lot of the early dual voltage locos that way. The major downside would be the loss of regenerative braking.

The electric spine plan is one of the great missed opportunities of the last 20 years. I went through a phase of photting at Worting Jcn (west of Basingstoke) about 10 years ago. I was surprised by the volume of freight but annoyed as ever by diesel haulage under/over juice. Basingstoke-Reading and Didcot-Coventry under wire should be a no-brainer, but Oxford is still diesel I think? I stopped at Tebay yesterday between 3 and 4pm and bagged three  66s. a 70 vs one 88. Not a bad haul for an hour, but I'd prefer 90s or 86s anyday.

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, Anadin Dogwalker said:

I had always assumed that the wires would go east to Retford and join up with a 1500v KX-Doncaster/Leeds electrification, hence the proposed 27 EM2s.This would have only lasted a year ( on paper) between the 55 Modernisation plan and the adoption of AC. The allocation of all 40 AL5s for construction at Doncaster (and more AL6s) was the last vestige of wiring the ECML before the 80s.

 

And the fact they only ever built 7 tells you early on they knew it was going nowhere beyond Sheffield, they had to have electric locos otherwise the New Woodhead tunnel would be unusable, so they built the bare minimum.

[62613]

4 hours ago, peanuts said:

pub discussion tuther day would the Woodhead route have survived beaching and still be open and prospering today if it had never been electrified and "modernised " ?

The LNER had long wanted to electrify the section through the tunnels, to eliminate the terrible operating conditions inside them, but couldn't raise the capital for the investment required; it was the same with the Shenfield electrification. The only reason both went ahead was that the government at the time guaranteed the loans, because it was (a) investment in railways; and (b) it could be seen to be alleviating unemployment; there were several such schemes brought forward in the 1930s by all the railway companies. At the time, the recommended system for new electrification schemes was 1.5kV d.c.; 25kV a.c. hadn't even been thought about. The Beeching plan recommended closing the Hope Valley route and keeping Woodhead open; it was the loss of freight traffic, particularly power station coal, which did for it

[DY444]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

Don't forget that despite electrification, the Woodhead freight was only electric traction over part of the journey - it served Sheffield & Wath to Manchester, everything going beyond or starting beyond those fringes needed at least one change in traction - electrifying to Tinsley in the 1960s took out one change in traction at the sheffield end and was a good idea.  But the MGR services for example had to swap to diesel to enter collieries and to get to the western destinations - so full trains changed at Mottram, empties at Godley Junction and all trains from Dewsnap had to change traction for onward trip workings (except for Ashburys).

 

So those 47s could have done longer circuits all the way from colliery to Fiddlers Ferry, it would still of course needed more, but not a whole class more.  What it would not have been is pretty, the reason d'tre for electrification was two fold - test 1500v DC and save money on crews with a bit extra for alleviating stress and health issues on working heavily working steam engines.  Replacing that with diesels would have been as polluting as steam, not pleasant for anyone.

 

I don't see any way the permitted load over Woodhead for a 47 (or a 56) would have been the same as it was to/from Rotherwood/Wath or to/from Fiddlers Ferry so you'd either have to shorten the whole formation and run more trains or pilot them over the top.

 

I doubt the pollution from diesel(s) through a new Woodhead tunnel would be in anyway comparable to steam through the old tunnels

Edited February 24, 2023 by DY444

[Reorte]

Not sure why not modernising would've kept the line open. It's not as if it really imposed any additional operating costs and burdens AFAICT, well, supplying power did, but if that was too much hassle it could be turned off and diesels used, so an end result the same as if nothing had changed.

 

1500V DC might've been a dead end but wouldn't have precluded conversion to 25kV AC, and would probably have made it easier (new tunnel already built, and any other structures that needed modifying would've already have been changed). The masts could probably have mostly been re-used, as indeed they have been on the surviving stub at the Manchester end. The isolated nature of it, maybe an issue as discussed, but again not one that I could see could've hastened closure compared to not having it at all.

[Reorte]

23 minutes ago, DY444 said:

I doubt the pollution from diesel(s) through a new Woodhead tunnel would be in anyway comparable to steam through the old tunnels

Yeah, that seems an odd one. I believe it was the narrow bores of the old tunnels that were part of the reasons it got so unpleasant, with hard-working steam locos with heavy loads. Even with lingering diesel fumes but in a completely enclosed cab in a new tunnel, surely no worse than what we still have in tunnels up and down the country, which is generally of no issue at all on the local scale as far as I know (says someone who doesn't drive trains through them mind you).

[woodenhead]

56 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

I don't see any way the permitted load over Woodhead for a 47 (or a 56) would have been the same as it was to/from Rotherwood/Wath or to/from Fiddlers Ferry so you'd either have to shorten the whole formation and run more trains or pilot them over the top.

 

I doubt the pollution from diesel(s) through a new Woodhead tunnel would be in anyway comparable to steam through the old tunnels

With all the gradients banking would still have been the norm and the length of the trains would have been affected too.

 

It's all hypothetical though, as it never happened, it would be a completely different history, one perhaps that might have involved the Standedge route more and that remaining a curvy four track route, the Micklehurst route staying open, perhaps the Leeds New route also remaining open.

[PenrithBeacon]

The carbon monoxide from the diesel exhausts might just stop the engines working. In US there is at least one tunnel which has to be purged with fresh air after a train has passed 

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

Yeah, that seems an odd one. I believe it was the narrow bores of the old tunnels that were part of the reasons it got so unpleasant, with hard-working steam locos with heavy loads. Even with lingering diesel fumes but in a completely enclosed cab in a new tunnel, surely no worse than what we still have in tunnels up and down the country, which is generally of no issue at all on the local scale as far as I know (says someone who doesn't drive trains through them mind you).

 

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

And the fact they only ever built 7 tells you early on they knew it was going nowhere beyond Sheffield, they had to have electric locos otherwise the New Woodhead tunnel would be unusable, so they built the bare minimum.

I remember reading that in the last days of the route when there were quite a lot of diesel hauled specials, that conditions in the new tunnel got pretty bad.  IIRC the new tunnel has no ventilation shafts as it was built for electric operation.

 

Jamie

Edited February 24, 2023 by jamie92208

[woodenhead]

Taking an alternative history route - if they had abandoned the Wath routes to Penistone in 1950 rather than electrify they could have routed trains via Healey Mills:

 

Wath-Barnsley-Healey Mills-Mirfield-Stalybridge-Guide Bridge-Woodley then pick up the South Mancheser avoiding route to Skelton and on to Warrington.  At that time the Standedge route was four track and busy but as the 50s and 60s progressed it became less so and would easily have soaked up the Woodhead traffic from Wath, traffic from Sheffield could have continued going via Penistone until passenger services ceased and then been routed via Wath or sent via Chinley

 

Being freight they didn't have to route via Penistone, they chose to.  At the time however, it probably worked out more cost effective to electrify and keep going over Woodhead but economics caught up and the trains did go via Standedge.

[russ p]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I remember reading that in the last days of the route when there were quite a lot of diesel hauled specials, that conditions in the new tunnel got pretty bad.  IIRC the new tunnel has no ventilation shafts as it was built for electric operation.

 

Jamie

 

Did the new tunnel not have one air shaft? I'm not sure if I read somewhere it had one which linked into one for the original tunnels. I remember about 20 years ago seeing a ventilation shaft on the Moor above which had a great 76 mural on it. You could see down it but it appeared to split into two presumably for the two old tunnels not sure if it had another branch to the new one

[montyburns56]

Were any locals/BR Managers/politicians fighting to keep the line open at the time? I know that without a passenger service that there wasn't much at stake, but did anyone think about it's possible potential in the future? And was just mothballing the line even suggested to BR?

[woodenhead]

13 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

Were any locals/BR Managers/politicians fighting to keep the line open at the time? I know that without a passenger service that there wasn't much at stake, but did anyone think about it's possible potential in the future? And was just mothballing the line even suggested to BR?

The unions made sure it remained as single line for a number of years after closure, but all the OHLE was recovered fairly smartly.

 

Once it went, it was never coming back, Arthur and the Government saw to that.

[Edwin_m]

4 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

The carbon monoxide from the diesel exhausts might just stop the engines working. In US there is at least one tunnel which has to be purged with fresh air after a train has passed 

 

Tunnel ventilation was one of the reasons several mountain sections in the States were electrified.  However that was to eliminate steam working, and with the advent of diesels these electrifications were fairly quickly abandoned.  Which suggests that steam would be worse than diesel from a pollution point of view.  

[phil-b259]

4 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I remember reading that in the last days of the route when there were quite a lot of diesel hauled specials, that conditions in the new tunnel got pretty bad.  IIRC the new tunnel has no ventilation shafts as it was built for electric operation.

 

Jamie

 

1 hour ago, russ p said:

 

Did the new tunnel not have one air shaft? I'm not sure if I read somewhere it had one which linked into one for the original tunnels. I remember about 20 years ago seeing a ventilation shaft on the Moor above which had a great 76 mural on it. You could see down it but it appeared to split into two presumably for the two old tunnels not sure if it had another branch to the new one

 

the new tunnel had one ventilation shaft built mid-way along - and that shaft was not linked to the old tunnels in any way.

 

However as noted this was insufficient to disperse significant concentrations of diesel fumes which is why operating restrictions were imposed on the number of diesels per hour.

[phil-b259]

6 hours ago, 62613 said:

 The Beeching plan recommended closing the Hope Valley route and keeping Woodhead open; it was the loss of freight traffic, particularly power station coal, which did for it

 

had the Hope valley line shut (as beeching recomeneded) then the decline of freight traffic is totally irrelevant!  - the line would have been required for passenger traffic between Manchester and Sheffield to this day.

 

However with the Hope valley kept open it left the Woodhead route exceedingly vulnerable to changes in freight traffic and hence its closure 

[62613]

5 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

The carbon monoxide from the diesel exhausts might just stop the engines working. In US there is at least one tunnel which has to be purged with fresh air after a train has passed 

 

I hope diesel exhausts don't contain carbon monoxide. That would imply incomplete combustion; with most diesels at the time run with an excess of air you should have been OK.

[62613]

18 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

had the Hope valley line shut (as beeching recomeneded) then the decline of freight traffic is totally irrelevant!  - the line would have been required for passenger traffic between Manchester and Sheffield to this day.

 

However with the Hope valley kept open it left the Woodhead route exceedingly vulnerable to changes in freight traffic and hence its closure 

I think the original proposal was to close Hope Valley, and keep Woodhead open

[woodenhead]

8 minutes ago, 62613 said:

I think the original proposal was to close Hope Valley, and keep Woodhead open

But a series of communities lacking on Woodhead, kept it open.

 

Who would have used Woodhead and Dunford Bridge regularly?  The losers though were the communities east of Penistone getting to Sheffield, but with no Sheffield Victoria and certainly no money to put in a curve they were doomed when passenger services ceased.

 

Today we can see it was the right decision to keep the stations within the Peak District National Park open.