Rotherwood exchange sidings were set at the eastern extremity of the Manchester-Sheffield-Wath electric railway between Orgreave Lane and Retford Road, on the south eastern boundary of the City of Sheffield with the Parish of Orgreave, within

Rotherham Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...

. The sidings, located approximately at milepost 46¾ (measured from

Manchester Piccadilly Manchester Piccadilly is the principal railway station in Manchester, England. Opened as Store Street in 1842, it was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847 and became Manchester Piccadilly in 1960. Located to the south-east of Manchester city ...

), consisted of two sets of lines split between the up and down sides of the line, and were laid out for the purpose of locomotive changing on trains passing through the area. Originally steam, later diesel locomotives brought trains, particularly coal from the Nottinghamshire coalfield to the down sidings, where the motive power was changed to electric traction for the run over Woodhead to

Mottram Mottram is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Buster Mottram, former British tennis player, son of Tony Mottram * Craig Mottram, Australian distance runner * Don Mottram, English flavour chemist * Eric Mottram, English poet * Hei ...

yard where it was changed again for steam (later diesel) to continue its journey. The returning empty traffic was changed over in the up sidings. Entry to the down sidings was by

Permissive block regulations Permissive Working on a railway in the United Kingdom allows more than one train at a time to be on the same line in a block section, a signal section or a dead-end platform line. Authorisation The areas where Permissive Working is allowed are ...

from Woodhouse East Junction and on busy days trains would queue for the full distance. The sidings were controlled by a

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

built signal box set at the east end of the up sidings on the down side of the line.

References

{{Reflist Woodhead Line Rail transport in Sheffield