Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway
The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway was a trans-Pennine railway formed in 1847 from the amalgamation of several companies serving the Sheffield and Manchester industrial region, operating the Woodhead Route through the Pennines from Manchester London Road to Sheffield, Lincoln, Cleethorpes, and Grimsby — a heavy-freight east-west trunk that carried the coal and manufactured goods of South Yorkshire to the Humber ports and the textile products of Lancashire eastward to the North Sea. The MSLR's works at Gorton, Manchester gave it a distinctive engineering tradition, and its locomotives in their characteristic black livery were a familiar sight on the Woodhead route's severe gradients.
The railway's character changed entirely in the 1890s when its ambitious chairman Sir Edward Watkin promoted the London Extension — a new main line from Annesley in Nottinghamshire south through Leicester and Rugby to a new London terminus at Marylebone, built to the Berne International loading gauge with the intention of connecting through a Channel Tunnel to France. The project was renamed the Great Central Railway on 1 August 1897 in anticipation of the Extension's opening in 1899. The Channel Tunnel was never built in Watkin's lifetime, but his loading gauge decision gave the route a legacy that the heritage Great Central Railway at Loughborough benefits from to this day.
The original Woodhead Route through the Pennines — including the 1845 Woodhead Tunnel — was electrified at 1,500 V DC between 1939 and 1954, making it one of the most significant British railway electrification schemes. Controversially, British Railways closed the Woodhead Route in 1981 despite its electrified infrastructure, a decision that remains contentious given the route's potential for freight and cross-Pennine passenger services.
About
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.
