We're still hoping on MML. When MML is done we have a chance

@@Isochest Yeah you're right and hopefully (pun not intended) electrification will go ahead

Did you know Steve Heery?

Are you related to the Hirsts from Hade Edge?

it was but the steep gradient at both ends made it un-viable for passenger services & when all the pits closed the line was no longer needed

@@jasinere35 The steep gradients were on the Worsboro Incline which was freight only

Just add a transformer and larger insulators on the pantographs

No it's impossible.

No. Just a bit expensive or perhaps more work than some could be bothered to do perhaps.

I’m sure it could work on the Tyne + Wear Metro network as that is 1500v DC overhead. Problem would be finding a time when no other traffic was running. Early hours of the morning would be the only option.

Not sure. But were this line still open today, they'd probably be using the class 88 loco. This is probably the nearest modern day equivalent to class 76.

Someone who cares might. But Politicians care only for a bung. Right up their arsehole!

Reopen the line to do what? The coal traffic has gone. Woodhead Tunnel has been sold.

Carry the traffic the M62 carries now!

@@robinmoss5470 All sorts. Intermodal from Hull. Think IKEA. They realised short haul trainload is viable from Immingham as short as 35 miles!

I feel the line has gone for good: they've done the usual trick of blocking and/or removing the trackbed so as to make any future reinstatement plans too expensive to contemplate. There seems to be deliberate overpricing of railway capital works in any case.

+PhII RP Ask the Psychopaths.

+PhII RP Oh and ask the Apaths (Bystanders) too.

Because in English Law Freight Forwarders could not raise an objection to closure as they could before 1963. Crap.That was Ernest Marples for you. Crap.

Because the CEGB closed the destination power stations and the Woodhead Tunnel was expensive to maintain. Oh, and also the 1500 volt DC electrification system was well out of date...

@@tanyajackson3833 Surely it would have been straightforward to convert the line to 25kv/6.25kv throughout as they did with the Hadfield-Manchester section: tunnel-clearances might have been a problem for the overhead, but who knows? I suspect that closure was on the cards way back, long before Beeching and before the locos were "life-expired": the line was only viable for moving heavy freight like the Yorkshire coal and even that could be sent, in the end, a roundabout way via Huddersfield, Heaton Norris, Cheadle and on to Fiddlers Ferry. It was regarded as a duplicate route, like the G.C. Extension.

+olive oil Less than that: 27 years. Industrial Capitalism is benign: Rentier Capitalism is Malignant and all devouring. We need a 21st Century Chartist Movement to bring it all back and get people to see and vote Pathocrats like Osborne and El Camaron out of Government

It could be reopened much easier if the national grid hadn't planted their electricity in the tunnels

@@MannyAntipov fill in the original tunnels with concrete get a tunnel boring machine and voila reopen the route (with replica EM1’s)

@@MannyAntipov If they had put the cables in the older, smaller tunnels and left the post-electrification tunnels for trains it would have been much easier.

@@SteamboatWilley They've had to move the cables from the old tunnels to the 'new' tunnel because the old ones were becoming a problem.

They are self interested Psychopathic parasites at worst and dont have a clue at best. Civilisation is a system to benefit Psychopaths who are protected by it's Police and Military. Without them to protect them we would instinctively get rid

They run a very good laundry!

@@None-zc5vg Shitwash maybe

The madness continues with that idiot Grayling cancelling the half completed Midland electrification

Wasn’t the OHL meant to be extended to the GC terminus in Manchester?

We should be the Government. We are not. That is the problem. Government has been hijacked by elites. That is not Demos Kratis.

People need to abandon Authoritarian politics and look at Libertarian politics. Like Switzerland the People should be the Government.

The route was transporting coal from soon to close South Yorkshire pits to soon to close Fiddlers Ferry... passengers went via Hope Valley... I love railways but come on..

@@Isochest there have never been any truly democratic governments.

The line would have to be completely rebuilt: the disused trackbed has been obstructed in places by new earthworks, reservoirs, a motorway slip-road and the non-availability of a major tunnel that now carries very-high-voltage wires for the electricity grid: a new line with new gantrywork and wires would cost many millions and there wouldn't be the traffic to justify such a spend. They've made sure that the route is as dead as that of the former G.C. London Extension.

@@None-zc5vg Infinite quantities of money are provided for road schemes on a daily basis my RHA associate:-) If enough people give up their cars thr won't be enough to subsidise HGVs. Dwell on it!

That route has gone for good: even if it were rebuilt, I can't see the existing ('New') tunnel being of the right dimensions to cope with the passage of modern really-high-speed trains because of limited clearances and slipstream/air-pressure problems. Instead, money will continue to be laundered-away into London-area schemes like 'Crossrail' and, as ever, into "HS2" and its successors.

In the UK: Yes!