Lines around Sheffield Victoria and Underbank - Disused?

[Leicester Thumper]

Hello folks,

 

one of my many rare postings again.

 

For a fair while I have always wondered what happened to the line which went through sheffield victoria. I am aware the station closed for the final time sometime in the late 70's or early 80's. In the book "The Great Central: Then and Now" by Mac Hawkins, there is a photo of a first gen DMU leaving the station with a service bound for huddersfield. The book also mentions that football specials used to run down that line to serve Hillsborough stadium.

 

At present on google maps, I have traced the route as far back as I can see rail tracks being present, The line seems to continue to some kind of works/factory which is next to underbank reservoir, where the tracks just disappear. I believe the site to be Stocksbridge Steelworks, but I need this confirming. I have got a rough co-ordination as can be found on this link: https://goo.gl/maps/mBjXz. the line follows through Deepcar which would point towards it being the steelworks???

 

First of all I need to confirm that the lne is what I think t is, a lpart of the old woodhead route. Secondly, Is this part of the network stll in use or can it e deemed/or is it listed by Network Rail as being disused??

 

Many thanks.

[Leicester Thumper]

righty oh. one to keep an eye on for the future methinks.

[Leicester Thumper]

oh nothing, just interested to see if the industry declines at that site or changes are made to suit business needs. then when its dying of and not used I'll walk it but I might be waiting a while!!

[PaulCheffus]

First of all I need to confirm that the lne is what I think t is, a lpart of the old woodhead route. Secondly, Is this part of the network stll in use or can it e deemed/or is it listed by Network Rail as being disused??

 

Many thanks.

Hi

 

Yes it is what remains of the Woodhead Route towards Penistone from Sheffield.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[Leicester Thumper]

I not heard of em struggling up there lately........

 

fair enough. does much traffic go up the line?

[big jim]

this is one line i'd love to take a train along but it'll probably never happen, the closest i get is beighton jn!!

 

of the old GC line, apart from marylebone to calvert and hatfield to piccadilly is this the only other remaining part of the great central on the national network?

 

and one final question as i dont know the area or its railways particularly well, i notice wath isnt on the CG main line, looking at google maps its off a junction at penistone, i take it that the freight (ie mgr trains) that came across the woodhead all went off that way to the marshalling yards for the electric locos to be added/removed and passenger carried on to victoria for loco swaps, if so was wath classed as part of the GC too or something else?

 

i've got a lot of reading to do on the GC if i ever get a chance, its recently began to fascinate me!

[big jim]

looking at google silkstone looks right but there are so many lines interlacing and divergine around there!

 

as for wath there are no traces of any yard or indeed infrastructure at all on the satellite view at all, sad to see, or not see as the case may be

[big jim]

its roughly where Wath Manvers is now on a map...it is sad

sure is

 

slightly off topic, i've never seen a woodhead electric with a 'nautical' wiper before

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/s/sheffield_victoria/index57.shtml

[big jim]

ive only become REALLY interested in it since i started going to claydon jn on the old GC from aylesbury

 

and of course adding that to working out of marylebone with chiltern means i work over all of the remaining southern end of the GC, now if i could just get loughborough to ruddington in somehow thats the middle covered (forgot about that bit earlier) but how to get hatfield to piccadilly on my card (short of getting a job with northern!)

[Edwin_m]

Stocksbridge was on a former branch line off the Sheffield-Penistone route.  Not far north of the junction, the A616 Stocksbridge Bypass was built across the disused Penistone route.  The OS 1:25000 mapping shows this area clearly:

 

http://binged.it/1vVtooC

 

Switching to birds eye view shows a bridge is provided on the bypass but it's not clear whether this is large enough to allow reinstatement of the track. 

 

The Wath leg of the Woodhead route used the Barnsley line out of Penistone (still open) but diverged east of Oxspring Tunnel to descent the Worsbrough* Incline on what is now the Dove Valley Trail.  I remember being driven under the bridge on the M1 in the early 70s and seeing wires there but I never saw any trains on it.  The surviving line takes a more northerly course to Barnsley via Dodworth, where I also remember seeing a NCB steam engine. 

 

http://binged.it/1vVuOPN

 

*spelling off the OS map - I've a feeling the railway called it "Worsborough". 

[Culmhead]

From memory, I'm pretty sure that the bridge would take a single line, but definitely not double.  I lived in Deepcar at the time of construction and passed over this bridge many times and at the time thinking that it would take single track and also the height would be enough for OHL.

 

At the time British Rail (Network Rail) was responsible as faras Deepcar Exchange Sidings and the remainder of the line to Stocksbridge works their responsibility.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Cheers, Aidan

[andyman7]

I am aware the station closed for the final time sometime in the late 70's or early 80's. 

The actual station closed in 1970, but the route remained open and the station structures survived for many years, gradually deteriorating. As late as 1978 it was substantially intact. Even when the Woodhead line closed the line through the station was still used by the Huddersfield - Sheffield Midland service, which (having very narrowly survived closure) was diverted in 1983 at which point he line became a freight only stub serving the Stocksbridge steel works.

 

The station site was only finally cleared in the 1990s with the remaining line using the far side of the (wide) viaduct and the rest being used to allow the adjoining hotel to expand. Even now, what's left is one or the more substantial reminders of the lost 'alternative' city stations of the 60s. 

[Talltim]

Of course there is still a fair amount of the GC east of Sheffield as well as ex South Yorkshire Railway lines between Woodburn junction and Rotherham and on to Doncaster

[Leicester Thumper]

Thanks for the replies, its all rather interesting really.

[GD]

looking at google silkstone looks right but there are so many lines interlacing and divergine around there!

 

as for wath there are no traces of any yard or indeed infrastructure at all on the satellite view at all, sad to see, or not see as the case may be

There is an enjoyable cab ride dvd called The Woodhead Route by railfilms with colour footage taken from the front cab of a dmu travelling from Wath yard up the worsborough incline to Penistone and then onto the Woodhead tunnel and then more footage from the opposite direction from just past Hadfield to the west side of the tunnel.  A few years ago I walked from Silkstone along the old railway to Wombwell station but apart from the first 2 miles and the final mile there wasn't that much to see. It would have been more enjoyable on a mountain bike as it's all downhill!  On the subject of Wath a few school friends and I used to visit the shed occasionally around 1978 by bus from Doncaster for the fine sum of 4p return and my final visit was by car after passing my driving test and was memorable only by the fact that in Wath I very nearly had my first car accident when some youth overtook some parked cars in his Cortina and just missed wiping out the old man's Viva! 

[GD]

Hi, this is the dvd

 

http://www.telerail.co.uk/woodheadroutecabride.htm

[Edwin_m]

I think it was the then-disused Worsborough Incline that was the scene of a rather notorious ransom drop.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/kidnap-victims-boss-tells-of-fear-during-ransom-drop-1492641.html

[jamie92208]

The Worsborough incline was the haunt of the LNER Garratt which was used as a banker before electrification.  The mgr trains out of Wath used to ahve two 76's on the front and another two banking.  I did see them crossing the M1 and sometimes you would see the bankers dropping back down the bank light engine.   Freights also used to go through Sheffield Victoria until the line closed and the wires went to Rotherwood exchange sidings on the line to Beighton and also to Tinsley yard.

 

I regularly rode the DMU service that way when I was at college in Huddersfield and ahd a girlfriend in  Nottingham.  It was always a fascinating journey down from Penistone, through the sad remains of a silent Victoria then reverse in Nunnery sidings and run down to Midland.

 

Wadsley bridge was the station for Hillsborough and was well used for football specials.  Hillsborough was often used for big FA cup matches and I once had to go and police a Leeds United Manchester United match there and there were 11 footexes to Wadsley Bridge that day IIRC.  It would be somewhere between 75 and 79.

 

Jamie

[eastwestdivide]

The normal timings for the steel train from the Tata plant at Aldwarke to Stocksbridge, according to Realtimetrains.co.uk, are:

1814 Aldwarke UES-Stocksbridge Works 1900

and

2033 Stocksbridge Works to Aldwarke UES 2122

 

via Rotherham Central and Woodburn Junction.

 

It doesn't necessarily run every day (at least when I try to go and photograph it in summer), although looking at last week's Realtimetrains timings, it ran every day M-F, sometimes a bit early, especially on the return journey.

 

You occasionally get a Network Rail test train up there, and during autumn, the RHTT services go during daylight hours. 

[Benton-Rail]

Does anyone know about or have any history, photographs etc of the disused line in Goldthorpe. I believe it left the current existing line (that goes to Sheffield) and headed off I think to Rotherham and possibly Doncaster. It served mainly colliery's. I am interested in learning more about the history and obtaining pictures of the Goldthorpe Colliery.

 

Thanks 

[eastwestdivide]

Does anyone know about or have any history, photographs etc of the disused line in Goldthorpe. I believe it left the current existing line (that goes to Sheffield) and headed off I think to Rotherham and possibly Doncaster. It served mainly colliery's. I am interested in learning more about the history and obtaining pictures of the Goldthorpe Colliery.

 

Thanks 

Try this link: http://www.RailMapOnline.com/UKIEMap.php?lat=53.53296&lng=-1.31973

for a map showing the various lines (open and closed) in that area. The Hull & Barnsley and the Dearne Valley are two of the closed lines in the area.

 

Maybe worth starting a different topic, as a new, more relevant, title might attract more viewers?