Steam operation at the newly refurbished Woodhead Station is about to be consigned to history. This was the opening day of the New Woodhead Tunnel on Thursday 3rd June 1954 and 1500v DC electric operation would now be the future - for a while!

Ex-LNER Gresley 'A3' 4-6-2 No. 60049 'Galtee More' rushes towards Woodhead Tunnel's No. 1 bore with a eastbound express for Marylebone. It will now face three miles of choking, smoke-filled gloom soon to be but a memory. 60049 was built at Doncaster in Sept. 1924 as LNER No. 2548 and was withdrawn in Dec. 1962.

© Raymond McCarthy-Eddie Johnson Archive