English: Down freight near Crowden.

View eastward, towards Woodhead, Penistone etc.: ex-GC Woodhead line (Manchester - Sheffiel/Wath etc., in process of eventual electrification. However, here in 1950 there are over four years to go and the traffic is still very much still steam. The Class J freight is gliding down the long 1-in-100/117 from the Woodhead Tunnels with Thompson O1 rebuilt 2-8-0 No. 63890. This engine was built in 5/19 as one of the 521 GC 8K 2-8-0s ordered for War serice, built by contractors as ROD No. 2144, stored by the LNWR as No. 2846 at Queensferry until purchased by the LNER in 2/27 as No. 6639; in 7/46 it was rebuilt to O1 No. 3890 and survived in BR as No. 63890 until 3/63.
Woodhead Tunnel and Sheffield (Victoria) - Manchester railway
Shortly before World War Two, a start was made on the electrification of the LNER main line between Rotherwood Sidings (east of Sheffield Victoria) and from Wath Central via the Worsborough Branch to Penistone and over the Woodhead route to Manchester London Road and other points off the main line including Glossop. The war interrupted the electrification for over 10 years, although the steel standards for the overhead catenary bordered the route over the intervening period.

After the war it was found that the two 3-mile single-line Woodhead Tunnels (now almost 100 years old and traversed latterly by 100 steam trains a day) were almost collapsing and beyond economic repair. Therefore before the electrification could be completed a new much larger double-track tunnel would have to be built, parallel to and on the south side of the old bores. Work began in August 1949 and was completed, along with the electrification (also new stations at Dunford Bridge and Woodhead and a new bridge over the River Etherow at Woodhead) in June 1954. However, the pre-war scheme to electrify the railways through to Manchester Central, the Docks and the Trafford Park industrial area had been abandoned, 'Motorway Madness' ensued, the M62 was built instead and the whole modernised railway was closed down and ripped up (between Hadfield and Penistone) in July 1981!

My brother-in-law, Andrew Sharman, was Chief Site Engineer for the Consultants, Sir William Halcrow & Partners, for the New Woodhead Tunnel (also the Thurgoland Tunnel near Sheffield). He and his family were provided with a bungalow at the Dunford Bridge temporary workers' camp, so I used to visit and was taken all over (and into) the construction works, and took photographs. (See e.g. SK1199, SE1502, SE1602. For a detailed description of the the whole project, see E.M. Johnson, 'Woodhead: the Electric Railway', Foxline, Stockport 2001: ISBN 870119 81 9).