A serious fire inside the Standedge Tunnel complex has forced the closure of the UK’s Transpennine Route. The incident has caused widespread disruption to passenger and freight services across northern England. Authorities do not expect the line to reopen before Thursday (29 January).
The incident occurred late on Sunday, 25 January, in the operational railway bore of Standedge North Tunnel, part of the multi-bore Standedge Tunnel complex beneath the Pennines, just west of the town of Marsden. The fire involved a Road Rail Vehicle (RRV) operating within the tunnel, prompting a large-scale emergency response and the subsequent suspension of rail traffic through the route.
Extremely challenging conditions
West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service confirmed that crews were mobilised to a blaze involving heavy railway machinery located approximately 1.5 kilometres inside the North Tunnel. Firefighters accessed the incident via the designated access tunnel and progressed on foot in what were described as extremely challenging conditions.
It took around two hours to establish water onto the fire, said the fire service. Responders cited several complicating factors, including uncertainty over the exact location of the blaze, restricted access routes, limited initial water supplies and dense smoke that significantly reduced visibility. The operation required close coordination with the national infrastructure agency Network Rail, and several neighbouring fire services.
Damage discovered after fire extinguished
Although the fire itself was successfully extinguished, Network Rail has since identified damage to the tunnel structure that needs to be repaired before trains can safely resume operation. As a result, major disruption is expected to continue until at least 06:00 on Thursday, 29 January.
The Standedge route is a critical artery for both passenger and freight traffic, forming part of the Transpennine Route linking Yorkshire, the North East and the North West. The most acute disruption is between Huddersfield and Stalybridge on the edge of Manchester. Passenger services are provided by long-distance operator TransPennine Express.
Freight flows disrupted across the Pennines
The closure also affects freight traffic using the route. The Standedge line carries intermodal container flows between the hubs such as Liverpool and Manchester’s Trafford Park, and destinations including Leeds, York and Teesport, alongside Network Rail engineering trains, ballast movements, rail delivery services and occasional departmental and bulk flows.
The steep gradients (up to 1 in 105), tight clearances, and an intensive passenger timetable all mean the Standedge corridor is already operationally constrained. Many freight services are timetabled overnight or in off-peak windows, while some operators favour alternative Pennine crossings such as the Calder Valley or Hope Valley routes when capacity allows. Hope Valley has been the subject of an upgrade programme for precisely that capacity reason.
Minor setback in major tunnel complex
Standedge is a unique tunnel complex, with several bores all three miles (5.4km) long, built over a period of five decades. Today, only the 1894 double-track rail tunnel is operational, but two historic predecessors are maintained for safety access and were used to help fight the weekend fire. A further tunnel carries a canal parallel to the railway tracks.
All trans-Pennine routes, both historic and modern, involve significant tunnelling, and the region has seen major tunnel-related incidents before. The most notable was the Summit Tunnel fire of December 1984 on the Calder Valley line between Littleborough and Todmorden. That incident, involving a derailed petrol train, burned for several days and caused severe damage to infrastructure. The Standedge incident is on a far smaller scale, but revived memories of jets of superheated flames rising into the moorland skies.
The fire represents an unwelcome but limited setback for the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) programme, which aims to transform rail connectivity between Manchester, Leeds and York through electrification, digital signalling, line-speed improvements and major station upgrades. It’s unclear if the road-rail vehicle that was burnt out in Sunday’s fire was involved in routine maintenance or the overall project.