Woodhead railway tunnels to Hadfield today

I first saw the Woodhead route - the lost railway from Sheffield to Manchester - in the summer of 1978. In those days Sheffield to Huddersfield trains used it to reach Penistone, running through the derelict Sheffield Victoria station on the way and also taking sweeping curves about the valley of the Don.

At Penistone you could watch a constant stream of goods trains taking coal from the South Yorkshire coalfield to a power station at Widnes or returning empty.

The class 76 locomotives were unique to this line and you could tell they had been designed in the 1930s, before the war put a temporary stop to electrification.

And I did manage to ride on the whole route shortly before it closed. In the winter of 1980/1 the Hope Valley line, the alternative way to Manchester that all Sheffield trains now use, closed for engineering works on Sundays and passenger services were diverted via Woodhead. I can still remember coasting past the reservoirs you see in the video on the way down to Manchester.

This is an excellent video from Trekking Exploration, showing the remains of the line between Woodhead and Hadfield today as well as some archive footage and photos of its last days.