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grahame

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Electric Trains - Manchester to Sheffield, retired to the Netherlands

« on: June 14, 2026, 17:36:09 »

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


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IndustryInsider

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Re: Electric Trains - Manchester to Sheffield, retired to the Netherlands

« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2026, 23:13:04 »

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.


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Chris from Nailsea

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Re: Electric Trains - Manchester to Sheffield, retired to the Netherlands

« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2026, 00:03:29 »

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


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Oxonhutch

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Re: Electric Trains - Manchester to Sheffield, retired to the Netherlands

« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2026, 08:30:34 »

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.


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Mark A

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Re: Electric Trains - Manchester to Sheffield, retired to the Netherlands

« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2026, 13:48:13 »

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


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