AN ABANDONED railway line came back to life as demonstrators took to the old track bed to prevent it disappearing for good.
Dozens walked more than six miles from Hadfield to the mouth of the famous Woodhead Tunnel to support a campaign to preserve it for a future reopening of the line between Manchester and Sheffield.
Power cables at the moment run through the old tunnel which was built in 1846 but they are at the end of their life. The old tunnel is in poor condition and was replaced by British Rail in 1954 but closed 30 years later.
Owners National Grid plan to relay the cables through the 1954 tunnel which would make it difficult ever to use it as a railway again.
Fighting
Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly has refused to intervene but an alliance of politicians, green campaigners, and railway enthusiasts are fighting to save it.
North West MEP Chris Davies said afterwards: "How far behind the rest of the world does country have to go before ministers realise the need to plan for the future?"
Work is due to start soon on relaying the cables which carry electricity from the power stations of South Yorkshire to Manchester through two crumbling Victorian tunnels.
Protest organiser Jonathan Atkinson from Glossop said: "We are asking National Grid to maybe put a little bit more money into their plans to refurbish the Victoria tunnels to lay their new cables through there.
"If they are not willing to, we are calling on the government to step in and order an inquiry not only into what National Grid is doing but al so into the feasibility of reopening the tunnel for rail.
National Grid does not need planning permission but insists has consulted with all interested parties andthe Department for Transport and Network Rail said there were no plans to reopen the line.
A spokesman said that trains could not run through the tunnel alongside the 400 kv cables but the cables could eventually be removed if the government decided to reopen the tunnel.
Comments
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how about putting the wires up on pylons, the landscape, with a wind-farm on the way isn't up to much around there anyhow
Ruth Kelly and this New Labour Government don't give a damn about Northern transport links. They only care about London.
Our apathetic local MPs are useless!
What do people expect from a backward government? this tunnel could save millions if freight was transported this way ,but this government are to far back in their thinking,they would rather spend billions extending motorways and building roads to make even more congestion. "We have a government led by donkeys"sorry to insult donkeys.
If the national grid carry out this work wouldn't they have to maintain the tunnel to stop it collapsing and damaging the cable?They've already said the cable could be removed if need be so if this is right wheres the problem?
I have to take a different view to Gripper. It is beautiful scenery around there. On a fine day, it's as good as anywhere. Take yourself to the tops and look down and around.
I have traveled through there many times.Another great British Balls up.
It always was sheer folley to close Woodhead Tunnel. They used the excuse that there were four routes over the Pennines which was too many. Now we know better. Part of the agreement was to keep the track down and intact. That was reneged on. The trouble is that the lines main freight was coal and we all know what happened there and who was responsible for that. When I lived in Rochdale I used to stand on the station watching coal trains coming out of Yorkshire going to Fiddlers Ferry, returning empty. In the nineties it was the other way around, Polish coal unloaded in Liverpool and transported to Yorkshire! I hope the campaigners get their way, but I doubt it with this shower in Government.
keep the tunnel theres some lovely scenery and theres not much left !!
Booie, some good points, firstly don't get me going on that woman, she did more damage to this country than anyone else, before or since.
Another excuse for closing it was that the power and traction equipment was non-standard, it was electrified at 1500V dc and the rest of the network was 25kv ac.
Also, the new 1954 tunnel was designed for electric traction and had no ventilation shafts so steam locos were barred from using it and diesels were only allowed through on a limited number of times in a day.
It would have been a simple enough job to convert the current and the line should have been retained