The Smiths cover by Dean 'Sensory Triggered' Other music by Dean

Just a little railway anecdote from me. I'm a designer for a construction company, about 8 years ago we were doing some roof refurbishment at Manchester Central. I was in their archive room looking for drawings from the 1980s roof replacement when it was the Gmex. I had been in there for about an hour going through hanging drawings and not having much luck when I came across some cardboard tubes. I pulled out a rolled up drawing from a tube and rolled out the drawing on a table. When I realised what I was holding, every hair on my body stood on-end. It was a hand-drawn detail drawing about ten feet long drawn on canvas and dated 1860, it was the Trafford Street viaduct drawing, not a copy, the actual thing drawn by hand nearly 160 years ago! There were dozens of them there for all of the local railway infrastructure. These things should be on display in the science museum, not in a dusty back room of an exhibition centre.

Additionally, when you guys were congregating around tunnel 3 gates, the surface below you was divided into six parallel 'tracks'. These are the concrete ducts for the individual high voltage cables; the cables are laid inside & then the ducts filled with sand. Then a concrete cap layer is poured. Six ducts for 3-phase parallel feeders, the same as the pylon lines. Incidentally, all of the rock in that area is largely sedimentary, which is why it appears as thick layers. The further north you go, up into the Lakes area, the layers get thinner, forming slate & shale.

Glad you just missed me falling off my bike 😅 haha. It was lovely to meet you all on the trail. Georgina xx

My late father a BR signalman on the SR told me as a kiddy about the signalbox halfway up the original tunnels nicknamed "Hell's Box" because of the heat and rubbish that collected and the seas of huge rats that fed off the passing trains droppings like grain trains not locked up tightly would bring in veritable waves of the damned things. Also maintaining the various signal oil lights was a positive nightmare where signalman as part of their duty would start off from the box heading up, coming back down at the top end on the other bore then down to the bottom and back up to the box hence why even at night this box was never single manned as half a signalman's shift would be taken in by doing the signal lamps. I think the lamps became electric at some point but them pesky rats just loved the wiring insulators for building nests so flagging and lamp duty was a common duty requirement to keep the 24 hour running line operational.

Waste of a railway that was. I used to live in Hadfiled and could often see the coal trains from The Avenue coming past Bankswood Park. I never forget the sound the hoppers made.

It's insane that the cycle route wasn't somehow integrated into one of the tunnels. Would be fantastic.

The tour de Hadfield has more viewers then the tour de France😂😂😂. I was hoping Timmy would be in a childs trailer with a tiny Tim helmet and googles😂😂😂❤ Thank you Martin and crew.

I walked through the tunnel after the line was closed in 1981, if I remember correctly there were still a few lights in the tunnel, but I don't recall any signal being lit. It was some time later another friend told me the 1500DC over head power was kept live to prevent the theft of the copper. On a map the tunnel looks straight, but it isn't so very quickly it got very dark. Being a modern tunnel it was dry. So glad I did the walk before National Grid took it over.

Somehow I felt like all hard work build tunnel has gone vain because nobody are allowed to use it

I worked with a driver at Buxton that used to be a fireman at Gorton shed, and he told me of an incident that he had in that No1 tunnel. He was a young fireman on a freight train bound for Sheffield from the Manchester area, and they were having more than great difficulty working hard through the tunnel, eventually almost suffocating and lying on the cab floor to try and get the 'freshest' air with wet rags on their faces. The loco was slipping like hell, but they managed to struggle through to the Penistone end. They found out that the guard at the rear of the train had had his handbrake hard on, not familiar with the uphill gradient in the tunnel. He got a right good ticking off! Apparently, back in the late 1800s there was a signal box inside No.1 tunnel, but conditions were so bad, that it got abandoned after ten years of use. Great video Martin, anyhow. The three of you, Martin, James and Roy, the (definitive) Zero crew! Many thanks.

As a Guard at Rotherwood, I thought that I had worked the last train out to Godley because of flooding at Howden. We had to be dragged back to Rotherwood by a pair of class 31. However, they did restore the line in my absence and continued to run trains. Such was the feeling for this wonderful and unique railway. The depot at Rotherwood was like one big family. I suspect that I am close to being the last surviving traincrew member.

my dad AND my grandad were both train drivers, and i often heard the two of them discussing the difficulties of driving this route. my dad did both steam and diesel. he also taught nee drivers. i was tremendously proud of him.

Nice to see your enthusiasm for the place of my railway birth, so to speak. Heartbreaking to see all the overgrowth that has crept in. I too had a'near miss' with the line, but mine lasted over 4 years....

Fascinating. A few decades ago there was some controversy about exhuming the bodies of dead navvies in a churchyard in Tintwistle, the locals were concerned about dormant disease such as cholera spreading. The lives of those navvies were extremely tough, they really were unsung heroes, you're narrative did them proud.

A long time ago I watched a Fred dibnah program on his work as a steeple jack. He used to say a lot of those drunk to numb the pain in their hands from swinging a hammer all day. It resonated with me at the time as a lot of my grandads generation would carry hip flasks and have whiskey in their coffee daily for the same reason. I dont think today we can appreciate what life was like.

One of the benefits of the 1500 Volt DC electrification was that locomotives could use regenerative braking, putting energy back into the overhead line when braking. This mean that trains travelling downhill, and slowing, could put energy into the contact wire to assist pulling trains up the hill. This also decreased wear on the brake pads/discs/shoes.

My father was the signalman at/near Woodhead back in the 1960s, quite a while before I was born. He's been dead for quite a number of years now, but I from what I remember he used to enjoy the work, except during the depths of the winter. Interesting to see the area - thank's for the video!

July 1981 I was 14 years old, and us kids spent so much time hanging around the local railyards and track lines. Change was overtaking that era, wasn't it ? My cousin had a welding job in the local yard and I thought I'd end up there working with him, but the yard closed in '85 and that was the end of that. Thanks for another fun adventure Martin, James and Roy.

Myself and a bunch of friends walked through the "new" tunnel just after the line closed in the early 80s when all the track and infrastructre was still in place. The new tunnel was on a slight curve and rose slightly towards the Dunford bridge end. At the centre of the the tunnlel there was a large "control room" its purpose unknown, this was on the right side looking towards Dunford bridge..