I wrote to Dinting in 1980 and begged them to take an interest but they did not even reply to me. Magazines at the time were championing the Peak Rail private line instead. It's crazy isn't it? The line was there, intact and joining two big cities! Whearas the Peak Rail line was in a state, and 30 years on has never really happened. Anyone who travelled the Woodhead route could never forget the haunting beauty. It was nothing like any other line. Dinting went bust = what they deserved
Just loved the EM1/2s spent many happy hours with my mates on Sheffield Victoria after it had shut down to see these in their final days.Usually filthy with no name plates but just iconic looking loco's.The signal man used to be OK with us as he knew were doing no harm and even let us in the signal box once as it was so cold.Can you imagine that today ?
I think it was a voltage problem, the Woodhead route was 1500v DC and considered obsolete. The rest of the system was being modernised to 25 KV AC. Why it wasn't converted is any bodies guess.
If you combine AC and DC current you get heavy metal :P sorry that came to mind when he said ac dc current. It is always nice seeing old footage of these things, Yes it is out of my life time but it is not all that old it can be sad in some ways things move on...pitty not always for the best.
It criminal that the British Government can spend money building a new Woodhead tunnel in the 50s and under 30 years later abandon it whilst I dont doubt that 1500V DC is a bit of dinosuar and it should have been converted to 25KV like the lines out of Liverpool Street, the line should never ever have closed, Is there not to many cars and trucks on the road already
I still have a copy of the BR report recommending closure. It concluded that the power supply was life expired (which it was - there were multiple failures of the feeder cables and the mercury arc rectifiers were pretty old) and that as it couldn't be converted to 25KV and although it accommodate 8'6" containers and was better laid out than the Hope valley it had to be closed. Imagine my surprise when only 4 years later it suddenly became easy to convert Hatfield/Glossop to 25KV. I still don't understand why the powers that be were so obsessed with closing it>
@theredraven Perhaps not the whole system, but even Beeching saw this even as a Freight only route with a long term future. With projected rail freifght market share set to more than double and internal (short haul) freight to multiply 12 times this route is a must to reopen given what lies on both sides.
@mekydro The EM1/2s were lovely locos in my view. As a small boy of 4 years old in 1968 to me they were the best locos on the railway. I was not aware of the ac electric locos. I remember being sad at all the steam engines lined up for scrap between Gorton & Ashburys:-((((((
@theredraven The Woodhead scheme was proposed and began before 25kv ac became viable. The first works were began in 1936. I believe the first electrification at 25kv ac was in the now Democratic Republic of Congo in 1952. Then followed Valenciennes-Thionville (France) in 1955 which obviously swayed the UK Government onto high voltage ac.
@theredraven The UK Government standardised electrification voltages: The LB&SCR 6.7kV ac OHLE was "non standard" in their view. This could have been an early national standard as it was also used by the Midland Railway around Lancaster. This was meant to be a pilot for main line electrification between Derby & Manchester. I think high voltage ac was the way to go from the beginning.
Very good video, final years of passenger operation beyond Hadfield. I wonder if London Road powerbox signalmen ever inadvertently routed an AC loco onto the DC side of Piccadilly and v.v., and the drivers duly took the signal? Maybe they had local train describer codes to make sure only diesels used the connection.
Considering these electric locos were introduced in 1953, they must have seemed very modern at the time as only a fraction of the British Rail network was electrified - most of the electrified n/w was in London, and the South, and South East regions. The locos look well built and sturdy compared with many dieseal and electric trains from that period. The biggest mystery is why the whole Woodhead line was closed. Politics and costcutting, more than being under used I think.
1:30 -- presumably, the E-prefix of E26054 was to avoid confusion with what would become the TOPS class 26 diesels. Although there never was a 26054, the E-prefix would be necessary for EM1s 26001-046.
They could have splashed-out on some transfers and (p)renumbered the electric "26s" into "76s" or some other arbitrary numbers until TOPS numbers came in.
@@johnhardman3 Not really. the class numbers came a few years after the E and D prefixes. I think they just decided that Electrics would have an E and Diesels a D to distinguish them from steam. Later DC electric locos got numbered class 7x and AC locos 8x whilst diesels were 2x (type 2), 3x (type 3), 4x (type 4) and 5C (type 5)
LOCOMOTIONNUMBER1 Manchester Piccadilly was in effect two stations in one. The LNWR part was a terminal station and had the 25kv ac. The GCR bit was a through station and was at that time 1500v dc I do feel that the Woodhead could have been converted early on and the loco's all offered to Holland and any other country with 1500v dc
I think British Rail did try to sell the remaining Class 76 locos to Nederland Spoorwegen when the Woodhead line closed, but they decided to order new locos instead. Shame to see them all go for scrap.
The GCR bit was NOT a through station, it was what is nowadays the lowest numbered platforms of the terminal station. The through station, what is today platforms 13 & 14, was the MSJ&A station, nothing to do with the GCR station .
@@andrewoverton5170 That too MSJ&A was 1500v DC for a while. The 25KV sandwiched between 2x1500v DC lines Platforms 1-4 and 13/14 (although did the Altrincham 1500V start at Oxford Road? - Need to check)
I think it's unlikely this line will ever open again.The original tunnels are collapsing and the third tunnel is now used as an underground cable tunnel for the electricity company. Also, many of the stone bridges on the route were too low and have been demolished and replaced with lightweight footbridges. The original station buildings along the way have all been either demolished or converted to houses. Portions of the routes cuttings have been filled in to support new roads to cross them.
@mekydro Modern?!? The Woodhead electrification was a 1940s project that was delayed by the war. Current Sheffield-Manchester trains take 51 minutes, compared to 56 minutes along the Woodhead Line behind one of these...
Even with the anoying naration you can make out the sound of the class 76 and it's nothing like the olivias trains sound, i grew up with these locos running past my house
@stebearleeds The Woodhead system was out of date six years after it was built since BR switched to the 25KV AC system. This is of course a company that wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers money building new steam engines instead of disels and electrics before scrapping them all after only about 12 years of use. Rather than carrying on the Woodhead electrification with the 1500 volt DC system they should have started with the 25 KV AC and saved us taxpayers lots of money.
Officially it was to do with 1500dc. Unofficially I have been told the real reason for closure was the planned m67 motorway. The motorway would have followed the route of the railway through the valley and the tunnels would have been utilised as winter refuge routes!!
seemingly DfT lost interest in the 1st and 2nd tunnels because HS2 if/when built will pass over woohead route and a NEW high speed tunnel will be built. so a fourth tunnel is expected.
Hopefully a new "Woodhead Base Tunnel" like the Swiss Gotthard Base Tunnel. I watched freights over Gotthard in 2013 and they needed 4 electric locos on the front and 4 on the back.
@cleckheatoncentral Non standard electrification, BR running at a massive loss etc. If it had been an overhead system like they had in other parts of the UK it might have survived. That, and Mrs Thatcher wasn't very tolerant of things running at a several billion pound loss (quite right too I might add).
@Isochest A written constitution wouldn't have saved the Woodhead route or the money eating monster known as British Railways. Constitutions deal with the legal framework for governing a country, not who owns what piece of industry.
@Isochest Having no written constitution isn't a problem. As for the "buy foreign" policy, can't really blame them after the likes of trade unions, Ted Heath and Harold Wilson between them ran British industry into the ground during the 60s and 70s.
@topshed34a The BR Derby Mafia had a lot to do with it:-((( Conversion to 6.25kv ac could be done quickly with class 81-85 to take place of the class 76s. Through running would happen. They wanted to kill the Great Central in any shape or form:-(( My view on rail is no matter what company the railway is or was the more the merrier:-)))
@MrWhothefoxthat Seriously? A museum run a whole line? Do you know how much money that would cost? Not to mention the fact the 1500 volt system was unique and would cost a ton of money to maintain on top of keeping the whole line. The Woodhead route is what, 41 miles? Most preserved lines are only about 10 or 12.
