Piercing The Pennines

The stories behind the awe-inspiring tunnels, railways and the magnificent feats of engineering that went into building them.

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Lancashire and Yorkshire led Britain and the world into the industrial revolution, yet were long cut off by the Pennine chain. The railway age finally brought the two counties together and ensured the continued growth of Manchester as Britain's second city. It was linked to Leeds and Sheffield by a series of heroic railway tunnels, three of which were successively the longest in the world when completed in the 1840s. Often taken for granted, this book portrays them as extraordinary achievements against seemingly insuperable odds that deserve the fullest recognition.
These pages look not just at the tunnels and the men who created them but also at how lines built through them connected key stations either side of the Pennines. They step back further in history to show how canals paved the way for the railways and also look forward to the future with its brave talk of HS3 achieving journey times that seem unimaginable.
There is a remarkable collection of illustrations ranging from period lithographs through to present-day photographs.
The many varied themes in this book include:
* The vision of George Stephenson - 'Father of Railways'
* Navvies left to fend for themselves in huts thrown together with loose stones and thatch
* Drunken riots following pay day
* Death and chronic illness at Woodhead tunnel on top of the Pennines
* Enginemen coming close to suffocation when working heavy freights through the tunnels
* Early travellers who preferred to get off and walk rather than travel through a tunnel behind a 'steam monster'
* Branwell Bronte, errant brother of the literary sisters, dismissed for constant carelessness at a Calder Valley station
* The magnificent Huddersfield station - a stately home with trains
* The Midland Railway with almost eight miles of tunnel between Sheffield and Manchester
* Inferno in a tunnel when a derailed tanker train caught fire and temperatures reached 1,500 degrees C.
* The superb new Woodhead tunnel with its electric services that closed to passengers after only 16 years