Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway

The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MSLR) was a British pre-grouping railway formed in 1847 by the amalgamation of the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne & Manchester, the Sheffield and Lincolnshire Junction, the Great Grimsby & Sheffield Junction and the Grimsby Docks Company. Its system ran from Manchester London Road through the Woodhead Tunnel and Sheffield to Lincoln, Cleethorpes and Grimsby, a trans-Pennine east-west route distinct from the north-south trunks of its rivals.

The MSLR's main works were at Gorton, Manchester, where successive Locomotive Superintendents, Charles Sacré, Thomas Parker (1885–1893), Harry Pollitt and John G. Robinson (from 1900), produced the company's distinctive black-liveried engines. The MSLR's London Extension to Marylebone, completed in 1899, was the last major British main-line railway built to London until HS1 a century later, and prompted the company's renaming as the Great Central Railway on 1 August 1897.

The Woodhead Route through the Pennines, including the celebrated 1845 single-bore Woodhead Tunnel and its 1853 second bore, was the company's most heavily-engineered section. It was electrified by the LNER and BR at 1500 V dc between 1939 and 1954, but closed to traffic in 1981.