Coal and iron making first brought railways to what is now called South Yorkshire. The industrial towns of Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster attracted the Victorian pioneers, who built a myriad of often competing lines to the collieries and factories. The carriage of people was almost an afterthought, but once there was demonstrable demand, the passenger routes followed, linking the growing centres of population and connecting with the major cities in adjoining counties and further afield. Perhaps most historically of all, the immense challenge of piercing the Pennines at Woodhead was met with the construction of the Great Central’s line from Sheffield to Manchester, later famously electrified and then regrettably closed. This photographic collection presents a selection of images from across this diverse county from the 1970s to the present day, from the dying days of the pits to the era of the internet-enabled trains of the twenty-first century. Many of these pictures feature infrastructure and locations that have long since disappeared from the railway map.

Andrew Walker was born in Barnsley in 1962 and grew up in close proximity to the Penistone branch and to the Class 37s that operated over the line on daily trip workings to and from Wath up to the mid-1980s. He began photographing railways in 1978 and has contributed to many railway publications including a number featuring the Woodhead route, which he photographed extensively during its closing years. John is a transport history author specialising in railways.