Woodhead route at Torside

[snakeeyes]

Hi, looking at OS maps it looks like the Woodhead route was on the south side of the reservoir but there is an old railway marked on the north side, what lune was this please?

 

[unlevel42]

The railway that helped build and maintain the resevoirs.
Manchester Corporation Waterworks Railway.
One of Cheshires rare narrow guage railways.

 

[Ploughman]

It maybe featured in one of the books by Harold Bowtell about the reservoir railways.

 

[snakeeyes]

Thanks for the information.
I will be over that way in January.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Three foot gauge. Operational for just under 100 years until around 1968, and, if I rightly recall, there are still very short sections of rail in place near the Bottoms end of the line.

 

[Kettledrum]

Has there ever been a re-opening campaign for it? Who will be the first to get the crayons out?

(I am not being serious here)

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Actually...... a Dinting-Woodhead preserved railway does sound good.

 

[BurtonM]

Nice little idea - it'd have to start at Hadfield though, not Dinting. Also there's a very well used stretch of the Trans Pennine Trail there that you'd have to displace.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Nice little idea - it'd have to start at Hadfield though, not Dinting. Also there's a very well used stretch of the Trans Pennine Trail there that you'd have to displace.

Have to single track it then with a passing loop at 'Crowden a bleak spot on the Woodhead Line'.

 

[NorthernSpirit]

The only problem is that at Crowden some of the trackbed has been breached by the reservoir banking and that a short tunnel would have to be constructed since said trackbed at Crowden has also had excess material dumped there.

On the otherside of Woodhead at Langsett theres remiments of a railway that lead to Langsett Reservoir, an overbridge still remains to this day at Midhopestones.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Some more info as regards this former line. Opened in 1871, it was originally steam-driven and ran for a distance of four miles from Bottoms Dept. (now used by United Utilities) to Woodhead Reservoir dam wall.

It was used for carrying both men and materials, in particular clay for use in patching up the original Woodhead Reservoir dam wall, which construction work had been started in 1848 but not completed until 1877.

In 1904, the steam-locomotive was replaced by electric traction, the power for same being supplied by a hydro-electric installation using water discharged from Bottoms Reservoir. The electric railway ran between Bottoms Dept. and Crowden; the electric power being fed by an overhead trolley line.

In 1938, the hydro-electric installation was abandoned, and mains electricity was used instead, in conjunction with a transformer and rectifier.

In 1947, the length of the line was reduced from four miles to two-and-a-half miles, being the section between Bottoms Dept. and Torside reservoir dam wall.

In 1950, the overhead trolley power line was removed, and the electric locomotive scrapped.

Between 1950 and closure in 1968, a Ruston Hornby diesel loco was utilised, until the railway was finally abandoned, and the track ripped up, after almost 97 years of use.

 

[snakeeyes]

Some more info as regards this former line. Opened in 1871, it was originally steam-driven and ran for a distance of four miles from Bottoms Dept. (now used by United Utilities) to Woodhead Reservoir dam wall.

It was used for carrying both men and materials, in particular clay for use in patching up the original Woodhead Reservoir dam wall, which construction work had been started in 1848 but not completed until 1877.

In 1904, the steam-locomotive was replaced by electric traction, the power for same being supplied by a hydro-electric installation using water discharged from Bottoms Reservoir. The electric railway ran between Bottoms Dept. and Crowden; the electric power being fed by an overhead trolley line.

In 1938, the hydro-electric installation was abandoned, and mains electricity was used instead, in conjunction with a transformer and rectifier.

In 1947, the length of the line was reduced from four miles to two-and-a-half miles, being the section between Bottoms Dept. and Torside reservoir dam wall.

In 1950, the overhead trolley power line was removed, and the electric locomotive scrapped.

Between 1950 and closure in 1968, a Ruston Hornby diesel loco was utilised, until the railway was finally abandoned, and the track ripped up, after almost 97 years of use.

Cheers Mc Warrior

 

[B&I]

What did it carry?

 

[Elecman]

Men and materials one assumes