Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway (LD&ECR) past Buxton

[Argos]

A couple of days ago Run as Required asked me to look at the line of route for the proposed LD&ECR through the Peak District past Buxton.

I've lived around the Buxton area for 16 years now and being a keen cyclist I'm well aware of the challenging terrain.

I also have an interest in the LNWR and Cromford and High Peak as well as the Midland route through the Peaks so I have some knowledge of the lines as built.

 

As I know very little about the line and it's intentions I thought I'd start a topic.

Research by committee if you like.

 

What I know about the LD&ECR's intentions come primarily from the November 2013 edition of Back Track Magazine 

This particular edition featured an article on four "might have been" routes around Buxton and I am indebted to Mike Fell and R.A.S Hennessey for the head start the article provides.

This information has been supplemented by some limited information available on the web

 

The Line was promoted by William Arkwright, a decedent of Richard Arkwright of Cromford Mill and spinning Jenny fame.

William and his cronies had their fingers well and truly wedged in the coal industry pie, and do not appear short of a bob or two.

 

The line was planned to run from Warrington on the Manchester Ship Canal to Sutton-on-Sea on the Lincolnshire Coast via the Peaks.

The idea was to provide outlets to the East and West for the coal from the Midlands areas. 

Had it been built the line would have 170 miles long.

 

The line gained parliamentary approval in 1891 and was fought against tooth and nail by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR), later the Great Central. This is ironic as the Great Central later bought the only section of the LD&ECR that was built.

Not all the railway companies were against the route though, the Great Eastern promising £250,000 in support.

 

The line was split into 25 sections and the section I am interested here is Section 7 which was to run past Buxton.

This section was some 36 mile in length and planned to run from Prestbury to Chesterfield.

Over 10% of the route would have been in 7 planned tunnels.

The line connected with the North Staffordshire at Macclesfield before running over the Cat & Fiddle or Axe Edge area before descending to a station around the Market Place in Buxton (this is higher than both the LNWR and MR stations).

 

From Buxton the line ran parallel with MR but at higher level ultimately crossing Monsal Dale on a 300' high viaduct.

 

After this impressive structure the line ran to Baslow and on to Chesterfield.

 

Whilst there appears to be much detail here there are also many unanswered questions:-

 

• How was the line to ascend from Macclesfield in a workable gradient to cross the watershed before dropping to Buxton?
• Where would the site of Buxton station be? The Market Place was fairly central and fully developed with no immediate open land for building.
• Whilst the Monsal Dale Structure is detailed, presumable something similar would be required to cross Miller's Dale?
• Similar to the first bullet, the decent to Baslow and the the ascent and decent from Baslow to Chesterfield would require some hefty gradients. How were these to be achieved?
• What would the motive power had looked like to run the line? Given the heavy gradients and equally heavy traffic (a huge tonnage of coal would have to be shifted to recoup the capital investment of building the line) I would guess this would be something rather special.

 

Whilst the intent of the topic is to flesh out the LD&ECR route past Buxton, I am more than happy for it to become a wider discussion regarding the LD&ECR and planned (but not built) railways around the Buxton area.

 

Edited June 19, 2016 by Argos

[russ p]

I wonder if the line had actually been built before the GC takeover would 76s have ran over Monsaldale instead of Woodhead , the LD becoming the main coal haul route over the Pennines

Am I right in thinking the Monsaldale viaduct was going to be of steel construction?

[Argos]

Hi Russ,

 

I believe so, I think the viaduct would have been too large to build efficiently in stone and by 1891 the lesson had been learnt not to build bridges in timber.

 

It does beg another question, what would it have looked like?

[seahorse]

Another topic for me to follow!

 

I, too have always been curious as to where exactly this would have been in Buxton.

 

A few years ago, I looked at a deposited plan at Matlock record office. You could not take photos at that time, but I drew some notes on my own map. It seemed to be close to College Road/Green Lane, across where the Errwood Avenue estate is now, across Macclesfield Road and St Johns Road (on the Buxton side of the junction) then parallel to Bishops Lane into a tunnel near the CHP tunnel.

 

As regards Monsal Dale, the bigger mystery is not what it would look like, but how it would be built

[russ p]

I've always thought it may have looked like Crumlin but being 100ft taller than it Monsaldale may have had bracing or triangulated trestle stantions

[Echo]

It might be worth looking at bridge construction abroad. Latin America, India and other places has some pretty spectacular viaducts in very challenging terrain.

[russ p]

Monsaldale would have been amongst or actually the highest in the world

[runs as required]

Its extraordinarily kind of you to plunge into such ludicrously unlikely 'what if' territory as this when you have much more applied questions to resolve at Tadd.

Have you turned up this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/71731-the-lancashire-derbyshire-east-coast-railway-volume-one/ where I first posted my question?

 

The closest togographical alignment I've seen is in this post: 

A bit late in the day to add to this thread but I recently obtained the maps and elevations of the proposed westwards extension of the LD&ECR. This information resides in the County Records Offices of Cheshire and Derbyshire. The proposed route was roughly as mentioned by dhig. From Chesterfield it climbed steeply to a long tunnel under the moors before dropping equally as steeply to cross the River Derwent near Curbar. It then rose again steeply via Longstone to cross Monsal Dale on a 272ft high viaduct before following a route to the south of Ashwood Dale. It went through the southern outskirts of Buxton before a tunnel into the Goyt valley emerging where Errwood reservoir is today. It then was planned to go through a second tunnel 2.5 miles long and this one emerged where Lamaload reservoir now exists. It then descended steeply to the south of Rainow before a semi circular bypass of Macclesfield with branch to the North Staffs. It descended to the Cheshire plain via Prestbury and Alderley. At the former a branch was planned to Cheadle. Thence the proposal was to run via Knutsford (link to the CLC) and approach Warrington from the south near Wilderspool Causeway.

Until I saw this I'd been doodling in pencil along the contours of an old Peak District 1" OS Tourist map.

 

I'd wondered if they'd have done a deal with the LNW about Higher Buxton goods as a station site, then 'borrowed' some of the alignment of the C&HP up to Ladmanlow before turning off north westwards across/around the upper Goyt Valley, Erwood, Saltersford, interacting with the east Cheshire topography around Rainow in the descent.

Generally I was going for less tunnel but my last stab at this rather petered out in the spring with me making some paper map gauges for various ruling gradients (1in30;50;60) to see how they might cross the contours.

dh

[Argos]

Hi Run as Required,

 

I did search the RM site for LD&ECR before my first post and found the topic.

I managed to read it all and miss Aspinall's post! The page can't have loaded properly given the information on there.

 

Having lived in Curbar for a year I know the geography, any tunnel existing there would have to go straight onto a viaduct to cross the valley. 

It's a bloody steep hill!

Anywhere that hosts the national cycling hill climbing championships is probably going to be an unsuitable railway gradient.

 

It might be worth a trip to Matlock to dig out the records. I didn't realise they would be so detailed.

 

I also need to plot Seahorse's Buxton station location on an appropriate map.

 

Thanks for the contributions so far.

[£1.38]

If you plot the route on http://gb.mapometer.com/ it will give you a gradient profile - a tip from another forum topic, if I remember correctly.

[John_Miles]

A really interesting thread. I would like to add my own question. I was brought up in Chesterfield on the western side and so the route of the railway from Chesterfield to Baslow has always been something I have tried to fathom out and failed. I presume that Chesterfield Market Place station would have not been a terminus, so the railway would somehow have to find a route through Brampton which was heavily developed at the time (and still is). After that, my guess is, it would have crossed Ashgate Road and gone up the valley where Linacre Reservoirs are before crossing the moors and presumably passing Baslow to the north. The gradients would have been quite steep, the moors are over 1000 feet above sea level.

 

I have heard other routes suggested - for example via Holymoorside but most people seem to discount these. The question is, am I right?

[russ p]

Chesterfield market place was built with the Western end clear for further extension. The station hotel is now a wetherspoons hotel

[Echo]

I had always imagined that Market Place would have been a bit like Inverness - a terminus pointing in 2 directions. Looking at the few places the western section would pass through, I reckon passenger traffic over the Pennines might be a little sparse?

[Argos]

Thanks for the contributions so far,

 

Some interesting information here.

I regularly used to use Chesterfield station and now use Macclesfield, I was aware both sites had other station associated with them and always planned to research a bit more.

I seem to remember there was a model of Chesterfield Market place doing the rounds a while back.

 

As section 7 of the LD&CER runs between these points I guess I've got my opportunity!

[£1.38]

I have seen a model of Sutton-on-Sea, which was speculative but used real LDEC buildings, I believe. Several models have used the basic trackplan for Chesterfield Market Place, including (I believe) Borchester Market. I have never sen an actual model of Chesterfield Market Place though. Do you have any photos or information?

[Argos]

Hi £1.38,

 

I don't have any details of the model I'm afraid, I saw it a few years ago at one of the local exhibitions and the layout was looking  bit careworn then.

 

I've spent the morning trawling through some of the digitised archive at the Derbyshire Records Office (note you can only see titles and brief document description and date) and stumbled across a couple of fascinating "might have beens" I was previously unaware of:-

 

The North Staffordshire and Mid Derbyshire Railway  - Running from a junction with the LNWR just North of Ashbourne to Williamthorpe on the Great Central (just by J29 of the M1)

via Atlow, Hognaston, Carsington, Wirksworth, Cromford, Tansley, Milltown and Clay Cross - 1897

 

The Gindleford, Baslow and Bakewell Railway - 1903

 

The Sheffield, Chesterfield and Staffordshire Railway - from Sheffield to the North Staffordshire at Ashbourne via Dronfield, Baslow, Bakewell , Winster, Bradbourne, Hognaston and Atlow - 1863 (this one is ringing vague bells)

 

This aside from known gems such as the Buxton to Sheffield Narrow Gauge Railway - 1872

I am also ignoring the plethora of earlier railway mania schemes conjured up around 1845, though those also look worthy of a visit!

[Echo]

If ever there were one that deserved to be built, it was the Grindleford, Baslow & Bakewell, which actually made a junction at Hassop if I remember correctly, rather than Bakewell. The topography was not bad for the Peak District. I think the Midland had proposed to bypass the Chatsworth Estate by building a similar route towards Manchester, way back before the Monsal Dale route was chosen instead.

 

The other two standard gauge schemes sound almost as far-fetched as the LD&EC route west of Chesterfield. There was some formidable terrain to cross in both routes, I think.

Edited June 25, 2016 by Echo

[John_Miles]

I think the Midland had proposed to bypass the Chatsworth Estate by building a similar route towards Manchester, way back before the Monsal Dale route was chosen instead.

 

This is spot on. The original proposal was to somehow get through Chatsworth Estate, presumably with suitable screening so The Duke was not inconvenienced but when the railway came to be built there had been a change of regime at Chatsworth and so a sharp turn was made at Rowsley, the old station was demoted to a goods yard and Bakewell got a station instead of Baslow.

 

Wirksworth, Cromford, Milltown - sounds like somebody drawing lines on a map rather than having a look at the terrain. This would have been as expensive as the proposed LDEC route (or the Hope Valley line).

[Poggy1165]

There was even a proposal for a grand cut-off for the GC running from the Manchester area to (I think) Nottingham. If memory serves (and it comes from reading about the Leek and Manifold) the route would have run through Leek and Ashbourne.

 

If the GC had had money, it would have been a vast enterprise - more proposed schemes than you can shake a stick at.

[Edwardian]

There was even a proposal for a grand cut-off for the GC running from the Manchester area to (I think) Nottingham. If memory serves (and it comes from reading about the Leek and Manifold) the route would have run through Leek and Ashbourne.

 

If the GC had had money, it would have been a vast enterprise - more proposed schemes than you can shake a stick at.

 

Well, there's quite a 'might-have-been'; a double-track GC mainline carved through Leek & Manifold scenery!

[Echo]

The Great Northern made a similar proposal around 1900 IIRC. Speculation that it was a negotiating tactic to screw concessions from the GC and MR. They probably never seriously intended to build it. This may be true of a number of other schemes, like an LNWR proposed line to Newcastle.

[John_Miles]

The Leek and Manifold never got to Leek. As the famous quote in the book by Manifold says, it starts at nowhere and ends at the same place. That said, beautiful countryside and interesting railway. I have walked the route several times.

[Edwin_m]

Wirksworth, Cromford, Milltown - sounds like somebody drawing lines on a map rather than having a look at the terrain. This would have been as expensive as the proposed LDEC route (or the Hope Valley line).

Far more so than the Hope Valley surely?  Leaving aside the section west of Chinley built as part of the "main line", the Hope Valley has two long tunnels but very little else in the way of major engineering. 

[corneliuslundie]

I am not sure why you are getting so excited about that viaduct. It would have been puny!

Compare with this one in Montenegro: "The project was started in 1969 and was completed in 1973. The viaduct is 498.8 metres (1,636 ft) long and at its highest is 200 metres (660 ft) above the Mala Rijeka." (Wikipedia)

Mind you, technology has moved on a bit.

Jonathan

[Andy Hayter]

But contempory with the proposed line, is the Garabit viaduct - 122m high, 565m long and built in iron (designed by Gustave Eiffel of tower fame)