There used to be an electric railway between Manchester and Sheffield. Then railways were rationalised and modernised and the redundant electric locomotives were shipped off to the Netherlands where they were used for a further number of years.

On 14th June 1986 - that's 40 years ago - a final tour was run to bid them farewell. That tour is recorded at https://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/80s/860614em.htm

 
There were only a small number of those Class 77s (EM2's) built, which were sent to the Netherlands long before that farewell tour and were used on passenger trains for only a few years until the late 1960s with the passenger service stopping very shortly after. 

The real purpose of the line was freight, which was in the hands of a much larger batch of Class 76s (EM1's), largely successfully, for several decades until the turn of the 1980s when dwindling traffic led to the line closure.

If I could go back in time 50 years and visit one railway line as it was then, it would be The Woodhead Line.  It was so unique.

 
Thanks for that rather nostalgic - and informative - post, II. 

 
The first locomotive was built in 1941 prior to the electrification of the Woodhead Route which was put on hold due to WWII. The prototype was lent to the Dutch Railways from 1947 until the completion of the electrification in 1952. The Dutch railwaymen gave it the name of "Tommy" after the British soldiers that served in the Netherlands during the war.

 
I don't have a source for the following obscure 'Possible fact' - I recall reading somewhere, something about an overbridge way down south on the GCR route to Wales/the South West/London: it may have been the one on the following link - and there's no opportunity to check on the ground as its deck will have gone for scrap.

If, in 1971, as teenagers, we hadn't reneged on an ambition to leave the skiff by the site of the (span lifted) bridge taking the GCR across the Grand Junction Canal to walk south to Catesby Tunnel and hopefully back, it would have been the first bridge that we would have passed beneath and we could have checked the following factoid first-hand.

https://www.railwayarchive.org.uk/record?rnum=L2330&os=1

... by the mid 1950s that bridge's steel deck needed replacing - and the replacement included Woodhead-style supports for the overhead electrification that would surely be making its way south.

Mark

 

It would also be my choice, but perhaps I'm disqualified as I visited the line several times between 1978 and its closure in 1981. Part of the aura surrounding the line was that the locomotives, and chances to travel over the routes, were elusive. My first journey through Woodhead tunnel was on an excursion, but most of my journeys were on the Sundays-only St Pancras-Manchester Piccadilly, which I was able to board at Derby. This enthusiast's delight of a train would be hauled by a class 45 locomotive. Sometimes it ran the normal route to Sheffield Midland; sometimes it would go via Barrow Hill.

Leaving Sheffield Midland, it would join the GC line at Nunnery Junction and trundle down that line in an easterly direction for some distance. The train would come to a stand (was it by Orgreave Colliery? - certainly not at a station). Sometimes the loco would run round; sometimes a new loco would be on the other end.

So far, the anticipation. Now the train rolled through the ghostly remains of Sheffield Victoria before heading through urban and then increasingly green surroundings. Thurgoland Tunnel... then Barnsley Junction where the line from Wath trailed in and the vista opened up to a surprisingly wide set of tracks; at least five under huge electrification portals, plus sidings.

Huddersfield Junction, with the line to Huddersfield curving off sharply to the right over an impressive viaduct. The sad remains of the Manchester platforms at Penistone, with the electric control room on the right.

Penistone Goods signal box, then the scene opening wide with typical scenery of fields and stone walls.

Woodhead Tunnel; then a graceful snake along curves down the Longdendale Valley; beautiful apart from the National Grid intrusion.

More excitement at Dinting, with its triangular junction, a (now gone) preservation centre and a high vista from the viaduct.

Guide Bridge... crashing over the junctions. I reflect that this Sunday train was probably the fastest one over said junctions at the time.

... and arrival at Piccadilly. Time for a jaunt to Buxton (which still had a loco depot at that time); or perhaps somewhere towards Chester or Liverpool? - on one Sunday, I recorded ten instances of diversion or traction substitution - and no replacement buses.

Of course, on Sundays there was no freight on the Woodhead line (and nothing Saturday afternoons, either), which meant that seeing the elusive class 76s at work was difficult. Most I saw stationary at Guide Bridge or Rotherwood Exchange Sidings (on the Sheffield-Retford line); these were the two locations accessible by passenger train.

I never had the opportunity to travel on the Wath-Silkstone Junction section.

I was up there, at Penistone, Hadfield and Dinting, on the last day of operation in 1981. It's hard to describe how I felt. In those pre-internet days, I just waited, expectantly, for a train to turn up. Several did. There was no special send-off. I had to leave late afternoon as I had a long journey home. Few enthusiasts stayed for the very last train, which was in the early hours of the following day (a Saturday).

With the electric trains gone, the section between Sheffield and Penistone was still used for a couple of years by the DMU service to Huddersfield. It provided a melancholy experience as the electrification stayed in place for some time before being progressively undone. The DMU service itself was under threat. Eventually it was re-routed between Sheffield and Penistone to travel via Barnsley and Silkstone Junction.

The memory of Woodhead haunts me to this day.