Alan Whitehouse

The Woodhead route of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway, later the Great Central, was the first major inter-city railway to be electrified in the UK. It was a major trans-Pennine freight and passenger route, with the added disadvantage of having the summit of the climb over the fells in the notoriously noxious Woodhead tunnel. In 1936, the London & North Eastern Railway announced that they would commence work on electrifying the line at 1500v DC; the war intervened and it was left to the nationalised British Railways to complete the work, including a new bore for Woodhead tunnel itself, in 1954. And yet, passenger services ceased over the route in 1970 and the line was closed completely in 1981.

Although the line was only a couple of hours' drive away from home, we never made the trip to photograph it until 1977, and only then as an add-on to a visit to another destination. Our trip was on a Sunday, when no trains ran, so my photographic gallery is restricted to some of the Class 506 EMUs on Glossop branch services as well as some images of stations and structures. Later, on returning to college in Newcastle upon Tyne on a Sunday, I found that my train from Derby would have a Sunday diversion from Chesterfield along the "old line" of the North Midland Railway and then entered Sheffield via the GC. The service passed the loco shed at Darnall, and so on the second occasion this happened, I was ready and was able to grab a handful of shots of the Class 76 electrics on shed. And that was all. Mindful of this failure, I have made a point of looking out for literature relating to the Woodhead route; and so I pre-ordered this book from Lightmoor Press.

First impressions are favourable; it is visually striking and has very high production values. I did have an immediate roll of the eyes when I sampled the first sentence of the introduction: "Forty years on since the final Harwich - Trafford Park Speedlink service passed through Woodhead Tunnel in the early hours." Where is the active verb in that sentence? The second sentence was no better; neither was the first sentence of Chapter 1. This book is far from the only offender in this respect; but I wasn't expecting verbless sentences here. Still, that appears to be the style that writers get taught or recommended these days; I remember someone Very Senior (who should have known better) being ticked off once at work for doing this sort of thing, but that was thirty years ago...

Be that as it may: there are two things I'd like to concentrate on here: the photographs and the closing chapters on the rundown and closure of the line.

The photographs are remarkable in a number of ways. Very few, of any, of them have been seen before. The other remarkable thing is that many of the early photographs, especially of the line in its later steam days, have been colourised. The authors mention this in the Introduction, and justify it by saying that it makes the book unique and that the process has now reached a stage where it produces generally acceptable results. I would also add that many of the later images were taken in colour, and so it helps uniformity through the book for more of the older images to also be in colour. As for quality: there are a couple of oddities, but by and large the results are, indeed, interesting.

But where I do have a problem with the book is in the treatment of other aspects of photo processing in this digital age. Many of the photographs have sharpening artefacts visible - a side-effect of the digital sharpening process is that some objects can acquire haloes that can be quite obvious, especially if they occur against a sky background. Other images have been subjected to High Dynamic Range (HDR) processing, which adds vibrancy to colours but which can look excessive if overdone. HDR processing does bring out hidden detail in some shots. But it can also have some odd effects, which together with sharpening can make colours look odd. The presence of sharpening artefacts on images scanned from colour slides was also quite intrusive on a number of pictures, giving some quite unpleasant results if the original slide had visible film emulsion grain. The more recent the photographs, the less troublesome this appeared as photographers gradually got access to less grainy and faster colour stock.

Many photographs have not been spotted; hairs and dust on the original transparency have transferred into the final image. These can be digitally and seamlessly removed in post-processing, but it is quite time-consuming and I have noticed a number of different publications not doing this. But it can be done and really should be.

Moreover, the handful of black and white photographs have also been tweaked in post-processing to increase their tonal range and sharpen them somewhat. Again, we get some quite heavy instances of sharpening artefacts. However, I can understand why some of this has been done. Printing processes can be quite unkind to black and white photographs, often resulting in a reduced tonal range for greyscale images. This may not emerge until the final stage of the process, especially as publishers nowadays send authors proof copies of PDF files taken from the final printing masters - and PDFs have better handling of greyscale tonal ranges than print. Add to this the way that railway photographers would take pictures under all conditions to capture their subject, whereas landscape photographers will scout their locations and spend a lot of time and trouble going to their locations multiple times to get just the exact right lighting conditions. Railway photographers' results may well have therefore been taken under less than ideal conditions; little wonder that so many railway books are marred by poor photo reproduction. (I can speak here from experience.)

It might be thought that I'm being unduly critical. That's not my intention. Having these images preserved for future generations and presented to us for our delight is very important, and there are all sorts of decisions that photographers, editors and publishers have to make when looking at a production process. But this is a £35 book. It is also important that people understand what they are getting, and if the maximum image quality is important to readers, they will need to know about this issue. (It is interesting to note that the publisher's website, which displays sample images from the book, selects two of the later images to promote the book.)

But I will also say that there are some very striking images and a few I would be pleased to have hanging on my wall for their artistic quality.

The other issue I would raise is about the closing chapters, on the rundown and closure; and more particularly, on the reasons for it. There is a vocal section of the enthusiast body that moans loudly about how Woodhead should never have closed; and more, that it should be re-opened. The authors go into some considerable detail over the case that was put for closure, which can be summed up as:
* An anti-railway attitude in Government through the 1960s, 70s and 80s;
* A non-standard electrification system: British Rail adopted 25kV AC during the second half of the 1950s;
* The successful campaign to prevent closure of the rival Midland Hope Valley route;
* A desire on the part of the nationalised railway to reduce unnecessary duplication of routes; and
* The resultant decline of maintenance.

And yet, the authors also point out that the route had a lot going for it:
* The 1963 Beeching Report actually highlighted the line as an example of the modern railway of the future and made no suggestion that closure would be desirable;
* The cost of converting the line to the 25kV standard was much less than British Rail suggested;
* The line was actually turning a profit, costing £4 million a year to run but returning £5 million a year in freight traffic revenues;
* It could have formed part of an electrified passenger route from Glasgow via Manchester to Sheffield and Nottingham - literally the HS3 of its day (a proposal from Sheffield City Council);
* And the Peak Park Planning Board considered the line had an essential part to play in reducing heavy goods traffic through a national park.

But the political spirit of the times prevailed. In particular, when the proposal to update the line to 25 kV was formally put forward, it was made clear by Government that funds would be made available for one rail electrification scheme, and the choice would be Woodhead or the East Anglian main line from London to Norwich, a line with heavy commuter traffic and a proposal worth many more votes come election time. Otherwise, Government plans did not take railways into account, and those who saw a future wanted the railways privatised, so expenditure on modernising a nationalised railway was out of the question until after privatisation to make that look effective. Indeed, one privatised franchise bidder, Arriva, put forward a franchising bid for the trans-Pennine service in 2002-03 based on reinstating Woodhead with modern diesel units, but ultimately their bid was not accepted. Possibly there was too much political capital invested in defending earlier political decisions. Certainly, the account of the political decision not to sell any of the remaining Class 76 locomotives to the Netherlands, who had already got 16 years' good service out of an earlier batch of engines from the route that has been sold to them when the passenger services ceased makes interesting reading.

So: an interesting book, and one which I'm looking forward to reading in some depth, despite my concerns over the technical quality of the photographs. If the Woodhead route is a subject of any interest to you, I would recommend you acquire a copy of this book.… (mais)