A selection of photographs from across the diverse county of South Yorkshire, from the 1970s to 2020. The photos capture some of the immense changes that have taken place on the railways during the period, from the contraction of the coal and steel industries to the introduction of modern trains for the twenty-first century.
The industrial towns of Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster attracted the Victorian pioneers, who built a myriad of often competing lines to their collieries and factories. The passenger routes followed, linking the growing centres of population and connecting with the major cities in adjoining counties and further afield.
By the 1970s much of this infrastructure was still in place and had been complemented by the construction of immense marshalling yards at Tinsley and Wath. Many of the pictures in South Yorkshire Railways feature infrastructure and locations that have long since disappeared from the railway map, including the electrified Woodhead route linking Sheffield with Manchester. Many of the locomotive types illustrated are also but a distant memory.
South Yorkshire Railways contains over 180 photographs, mostly presented in two-per-page format. The majority of images are reproduced in colour, with captions providing historical or anecdotal information about each image. 96 pages.