 Derbyshire lines
"Terry Harper" <Terry.Harper@> wrote in message news:<bi3ejq$m9r$1@titan.>...
> "Hartshay" <pw@hartshay.Nildram.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:3f450b5b$0$46004$65c69314@mercury.nildram.net ...
> > As a child I lived near a single track that ran (I think) from Near Derby,
> > through lower Kilburn, Kilburn, The Denby Hall Collieries(?) near Denby
> > Pottery and to Ripley and beyond. Does anyone know anything about this
> > line, its history, present status and condition?
>
> My 1946 OS quarter-inch map shows the line as having closed stations, as did
> the line from Ambergate to Pye Bridge into which it connected at Butterley.
> Suggests that passenger services had been withdrawn pre-1939 to me.
I used to live at Ripley and can remember the line when it was open as
far as Ripley Station. Beyond there,it used to go first through a
cutting then an embankment to join the Ambergate to Pye Bridge line at
Hammersmith (not Butterley). Trains headed towards the Erewash valley.
At Denby, there used to be a level crossing across the A6 which was
then the main road long before the A38 was built. These were long
gates worked by hand, and many a time we would site on the bus for
ages as a bloke opened one gate then the other, a goods train would
crawl across and the bloke would do his act in reverse.
Back in the sixties, I remember the 'Lunch Box Special' coming into
Ripley Station. This was a train with the cast of a midday show (Lunch
Box) hosted by Noel Gorden! How many people remember her?
I think the line beyond Denby closed about 1967 but I may be out by a
few years. I certainly can't remember trains between Ripley and
Hammersmith (I was born in 51). My late grandad was a retired PWay man
round there.
Later in the 70s I joined the S&T at Derby and remember in, I think
1971, having to go to Marehay crossing where a goods train had slid on
greasy rails and gone through the gates. This was post Derby PSB and
the remaining crossings between Breadsall Jcn on the main line and
Denby where trainmam operated.
I think part of the trackbed still exists around Ripley - must go back
one day :-)
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