Victoria Station

[Patrick316]

Hi everyone

 

I've found a couple of good websites devoted to the Woodhead Route. They are:

 

http://www.leytransport.i12.com/shef.htm

 

and

 

http://www.thewoodheadsite.org.uk/ - this site has lots of pictures of what the line - or what remains of it - looks like today.

 

Its enough to make you weep!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[Avalon]

Originally posted by Patrick316

Hi everyone

 

I've found a couple of good websites devoted to the Woodhead Route. They are:

 

http://www.leytransport.i12.com/shef.htm

 

and

 

http://www.thewoodheadsite.org.uk/ - this site has lots of pictures of what the line - or what remains of it - looks like today.

 

Its enough to make you weep!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

 

It is pertty sad....also if you are interested the DVR website has some photos too....

[bigkev]

Hi everybody,To the person who is after these photos of the woodhead line, there is 2 web sites that I have found one is http://www.old buffers.com and the other is BR loco's.co.uk, they have got some brilliant photos on the woodhead line in fact there is a page that is covered on the class 76 loco's and the class 77 also you can print them if you want too, hope this as helped you out.

[Patrick316]

Hi everyone

 

I see from a number of old maps that there was a railway tunnel under Spital Hill that ran from the site of the former Midland Railway Goods Station (which was situated between Savile Street and Carlisle Road) to the site of the Great Central Goods Depot at Pitsmoor Road/Rock Street.

 

I seem to remember on my last visit to Sheffield in 1988 that I could see - with the aid of a pair of binoculars - the mouth of the tunnel from where I was staying in Birley Carr.

 

Is the tunnel still there?

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[bigkev]

yes it is but the mouth of the tunnel as been bricked up you can still make it out though if you go and have a look at it as for the other side pitsmoor road/rock street I dont know if you can still see it I havent been down there for a while. When I worked at firth browns I can remember the loco's going through the tunnel in fact when the circus use to come to sheffield they had to go through the centre railway system at firth browns and through the tunnel to the great central goods yard to unload. Many a time when I was on the dead mans shift we use to watch the circus going through up to the great central goods yard boy that brings back some memories.

[Patrick316]

Thanks BigKev

 

I remember seeing a picture in a bookshop here in Bournemouth of the Pitsmoor Road/Rock Street end of the tunnel. I seem to remember the picture was taken while they were building the it in which you could see right through to the other end. It looked as if it was quite steeply graded coming up from the Savile Street end.

 

I think my next visit to Sheffield might end up in a photographic trip to the area around Sheffield Victoria as well as 5 Arches and Wadsley Bridge.

 

As a young boy in the early 1960's, I remember on a number of occassions coming into Sheffield Victoria from Bournemouth on my way through to Darlington. The train would come onto the Great Central at Woodford Halse from Banbury and would reverse at Sheffield Victoria and go back as far as Woodburn Junction, where it would turn north and go along through the back of Attercliffe before joining the Midland route out near Tinsley. (I didn't know it at the time but the route through the back of Attercliffe took me right past the back of a house in which lived a girl I was later to get engaged to in 1979).

 

Patrick

[mojoworking]

I remember the circus arriving at Victoria Station in the 50s.

 

The most vivid memory is the elephants walking in single file down the long gradient leading from the station.

 

Or is my memory playing tricks? (judging by bigkev's post above it could well be)

[docmel]

mojo

 

your memory is fine - I remember the circus parades

[bigkev]

listen to all you know it alls I suggest that you have have a word in the sheffield library in the archives section and ask them if the circus use to go through firth browns and into the central goods yard.Dont forget that the railway use to go through the center of firth browns even the main line goods locos had to go that way to get the stuff in to the central goods yard and I also know because I had a friend who's dad was a british railway guard and he use to go that way.mind you what do we know us working class people we have know say in the matter its all the upper class who think they know it all.

[muddycoffee]

Originally posted by Patrick316

Is the tunnel still there?

The tunnel is still there, I took my friend to show her the other week. The tunnel was called the spital hill tunnel, It is very steep and procarious and was built to allow a connection between bridgehouses station and the original Midland station. The top end has fencing over the mouth and the bottom end is bricked up.

 

I have just found it a book, where it is described as "Fearsomely-inclined" It is half a mile long and the building of it started in July 1845. This was before Victoria Station and the wicker arches were built. And allowed trains to come over woodhead into sheffield and leave toward Rotherham. This was also before the current midland line which leves the city by it's south exit toward totley.

I have just looked at a plan which shows the tunnel as blocked in 1950.