The Woodhead Tunnels are three adjacent ex-railway tunnels, each approximately 4,840 metres (about three miles) long.

The tunnels formerly carried a Trans-Pennine rail  link (commonly known as the Woodhead Route) from Manchester to Sheffield. The western entrances are at Woodhead in Derbyshire and the eastern entrances are at Dunford Bridge, near Penistone, South Yorkshire.

At the time of their completion in 1845, the two Victorian tunnels were amongst the world's longest railway tunnels. British Rail added a third tunnel in 1953. The Victorian tunnels were acquired by National Grid’s predecessor - the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) - in the 1960s to carry the trans-Pennine 400kV electricity link below ground, rather than over the moors of the Peak District National Park.

National Grid purchased the third tunnel in the early 1990s after the railway closed in 1982, with a view to using it for replacement high-voltage cables when the original cables in the Victorian tunnels reached the end of their lives.

National Grid has met with local Members of Parliament, representatives from the Department for Transport, and Northern Way, to discuss suggestions that a new Trans-Pennine rail line might be built through the Woodhead Tunnels in future.

The Department for Transport has confirmed that there are no current plans to reopen the Woodhead Tunnel for rail use.

However, National Grid's work would not preclude the reopening of the railway line if this becomes a more realistic possibility in future years.

National Grid expects to vacate the Victorian tunnels in 2011, at which point they would become available for alternative use. It has also been suggested that the 1953 tunnel might be required for rail use in future. Ultimately this would be a decision for Government, but the relative merits and costs of either trains or electricity cables occupying either the 1953 or the Victorian tunnels would need to be evaluated at that time.

The future of the Woodhead tunnels was debated in Parliament on 11 March 2008, when the Transport Minister stated that no Government or rail industry strategy or planning document has identified a need for additional rail capacity across the Pennines that would require the reopening of the Woodhead route. Click here to read the official Hansard record of the debate.