Cromford and High Peak Railway

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Operation [ edit ] Engine shed at top of Sheep Pasture Incline, 1949 Workshops and offices at High Peak Junction – the original southern terminus, before extension of the line to the former Midland Railway now the Derwent Valley Line The first was from Cromford Wharf (later extended to join the Midland Railway at High Peak Junction) to Hurdlow, a distance of 15½ miles, which opened on the 29 May 1830 and the second was from Hurdlow to Whaley Bridge, a distance of 17½ miles,

An official passenger service was operated on the Cromford and High Peak Railway between 1874 and 1877 and during this period there was one train daily throughout the length of the line, in each direction. Traffic - by now almost exclusively from local quarries - was slowly decreasing during the Beeching era, the first section of the line being closed in 1963. This was the rope worked 1 in 8 Middleton Incline. The rest of the line was fully closed in spring 1967, including the 1 in 8 Sheep Pasture Incline and the Hopton Incline. The train is the only moving thing in sight, save when a grouse, wild on the wing, rises with a sharp startled cry. Then just as Buxton is seen, with its white houses lying in the hollow, and shining like a pearl in a setting of emerald, a sudden scream from the engine takes the startled air, and darkness shrouds the feeding train. Works will start on Monday 4 September 2023 to repair the railway workshop roofs and gutters, so this area be closed to public from then until 23December 2023. In 1855 an Act of Parliament authorised the carriage of passengers. However the one train per day each way did little to produce extra revenue and, when a passenger was killed in 1877, the service was discontinued. The line's prosperity depended on that of the canals it connected but, by the 1830s, they were in decline. This was, to a degree, offset by the increase in the trade for limestone from the quarries.

The later (1899) Asbourne Line between Buxton and Ashbourne left the Cromford and High Peak Railway at Parsley Hay and the southern section now forms part of the National Cycle Network and is known as the Tissington Trail. The Cromford and High Peak Railway was a freight line, however, there was some passenger traffic. Passengers were expected to get off the train for the inclines. I do not know how they went up or down, they may have walked or been taken by hose and carriage. High Peak Junction The High Peak Railway, it may be further advanced in the way of preface, is a single line. It is of the same width of gauge, and of the same character of permanent way, as the lines belonging to the London and North Western Company’s ordinary branches. The challenging route made for tiring and time-consuming journeys. Corble explains: ‘Early railways were built like early canals, following the contours of the land. This made sense for carrying goods safely on water, but it meant the railway was terribly slow.’ The line’s original locomotives didn’t help. Corble continues: ‘I love that you follow the High Peak Trail picturing trains, but the curves are so tight and the inclines so steep you wonder how trains used it. The answer is that at first, the railway was horse-drawn.’ Various trade directories show that this firm was also a ' Conveyancer by Water'. German Wheatcroft and his sons managed this firm but German was the first Wharfinger (Manager) at Bugsworth Wharf at the terminus of the

Another locomotive is waiting to take us on, and I am making friends with the two fresh engine men, greasier and grittier than the last, and am learning to balance myself on another quivering foot-board, as we pant through a wild, bleak, hilly country.There is not even the stumpy church tower to be seen mixed up in trees, and rising above grey old gabled farm buildings, at these High Peak out-of-the-world stations. While its function was to provide a shorter route for Derbyshire coal than the Trent and Mersey Canal, it figured largely in early East Midlands railway schemes because it was seen as offering a path into Manchester for proposed lines from London. However, the unsuitability of cable railways for passengers became clear within a few years.