In
1837 Parliament gave permission for the building of a railway between
Manchester and Leeds.
George Stephenson, the chief engineer,
had several problems to overcome on the 51 mile long railway across
the Pennines. The most difficult of these was the 1 mile, 1,125 yard
long Summit Tunnel.
The Manchester & Leeds line was opened in 1839. Branches were
built to Heywood (1841), Oldham (1842)
and Halifax (1844) . The three mile Woodhead Tunnel on the line to
Sheffield was not finished until 1845.
Thirty-two navvies were killed and 140 seriously injured building
this tunnel. Edwin Chadwick, later estimated that navvies had more
chance being killed building the Woodhead Tunnel (3.0 per cent) than
those British soldiers fighting at the Battle of Waterloo (2.11 per
cent). In 1848 a line was built to the London & North Western
Railway that gave access to York and Hull.
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