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The Cromford and High Peak Railway (C&HPR) completed in 1831, to carry minerals and goods between the Cromford Canal at Cromford Wharf and the Peak Forest Canal at Whaley Bridge. Originally a canal was proposed for the route, but the number and steepness of the hills made this impractical. The railway was powered by horses on the flat sections and stationary steam engines on the nine inclined planes, and it took around two days to complete the 33 mile journey.
Authorised by Parliament in 1825, its engineer Josias Jessop (William Jessop's son), estimated a cost of £164,000, which proved to be a serious underestimate.
Its function was to provide a shorter route for Derbyshire coal than the Trent and Mersey Canal, but it figured largely in early East Midlands railway schemes because it was seen as offering a path into Manchester for proposed lines from London.
The line was isolated until 1853 when a connection was made with the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway. It was leased by the London and North Western Railway in 1862, being taken over fully in 1887. By 1890 permission had been obtained to connect the line directly to Buxton by building a new line from Harpur Hill the two or three miles into the town centre.
The old north end of the line from Ladmanlow (a short distance from Harpur Hill) to Whaley Bridge via the Goyt Valley was largely abandoned in 1892, though the track bed is still visible in many places and one incline forms part of a public road.
In 1833 steam locomotives were introduced on all but the very steepest of sections, but horses were still used for another 30 years. A passenger service was operated on the line between 1874 and 1877 with one through train in each direction per day.
Traffic - mainly 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, which, with a short stretch at 1 in 14, was the steepest adhesion-hauled stretch of railway in the UK.
In 1971 the Peak Park Planning Board and Derbyshire County Council bought the track bed and turned it into the High Peak Trail - now a national route of the National Cycle Network and popular with walkers, cyclists and horse riders. The Middleton Incline Engine House has also been preserved, and the ancient engine once used to haul loaded wagons up is often demonstrated *. Another attraction along the route is the Steeple Grange Light Railway, a narrow gauge railway running along the track bed of a branch line off the C&HPR.
Part of the route is now also designated as part of the Pennine Bridleway.
Near Cromford, the railway passed under Black Rocks a popular gritstone climbing ground, and gave the name to the 'railway slab', a short tricky 'boulder problem' by the railway track.
The Tissington Trail is now a route of the National Cycle Network, and was formerly the railway line from Ashbourne to Buxton, joins with the C&HPR/High Peak Trail at the hamlet of Parsley Hay. In its heyday in the 1930s this railway line (opened in 1899) was deservedly popular with walkers and ramblers, because it runs near to Dovedale. It also for a time carried a through-service (i.e.: without changing carriages) for passengers from Euston, (via Nuneaton, Uttoxeter and Ashbourne), to Buxton. However it closed in the early 1950s.
Reference
Rimmer, A. (1956 & reprints) 'Cromford and High Peak Railway', Locomotion Papers 10, The Oakwood Press, ISBN 0 85361 319 2
External link
See also
early British railway companies | London and North Western Railway | Cable railways
"Cromford and High Peak Railway"