Date: 05/11/2013

Two Victorian rail tunnels in the Pennines are to be sealed, dashing hopes the historic Manchester to Sheffield route could be reopened. Transport Minister Stephen Hammond made the decision not to buy the Woodhead tunnels, between South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, from owners National Grid. A new tunnel replaced the Victorian route in 1953. The line closed in 1981. Campaigners hoped power cables could be moved into the older tunnels and trains returned to the newer tunnel. [From Mark Bartlett and Richard Buckby]

External links

Trans-Pennine tunnels to be sealed

BBC News

Two Victorian rail tunnels in the Pennines are to be sealed and not reopened.

Related images

View from the staggered westbound platform at the closed Woodhead Station on 15 August 1979 as 76034+76031 emerge from Woodhead tunnel with a Trans - Pennine coal train.
Location: Woodhead
Company: Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway
15/08/1979 Peter Todd

View east from the former Woodhead station on 24 May showing the single bore Woodhead tunnels of 1845 & 1852, alongside the double track tunnel built for the 1954 Manchester-Sheffield-Wath electrification. Life for the crews of steam locomotives in the days of the 3 mile long single bore tunnels, particularly those westbound hauling the heavy trans-Pennine coal trains from Wath concentration yards, must have been hell.
Location: Woodhead
Company: Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway
24/05/2008 John McIntyre

A Sheffield-bound train passes the closed Woodhead station at the western end of Woodhead Tunnel in September 1966.
Location: Woodhead
Company: Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway
/09/1966 John Thorn