Sheep Pasture Incline: A Railway And A Hill, No Problem!

Part 3 of our Cromford & High Peak Railway series. We leave behind the lows of the Derwent Valley and start our first serious climb up the Sheep Pasture Incline. Exiting the High Peak Junction workshops, the line ran under the A6 road to into Cromford and Matlock. Here the winding of the trucks up the hill began. Now a short tunnel, but once was a much shallower bridge as seen on historical photos. We then see the severity of the incline that faces us. 1 in 8 at its steepest, it's hard to imagine how engineers thought this would be appropriate for a railway and then how spectacular the sight of trains being dragged up a hillside by a chain must have been. At the bottom, there is evidence that this did not always go to plan. Tales of runaway trains full of gunpoweder causing a mess at the bottom of the hill are well spoken. From the late 19th century a catch pit was installed to catch any wagons that got away. These would be diverted into a small tunnel - evidence of wreckage of such wagons can still be seen today in the pit. Half way up up Sheep Pasture incline was the original Cromford Engine House, before it was later powered the full length up to the top by the engine house at Sheep Pasture Top. Through the cuttings and clinging to ledges the line hugs until it reaches the top. The engine house still stands today, empty of the beating heart but the architecture still remains. This was home to the original Butterley Beam Engine, a stationary steam engine that provided the power. Later it was replaced with the workings of an actual steam engine, mounted inside the building. At the end of its life, it received an electric motor. In this series we'll be following the disused railway line the 33 miles from Cromford in the Derbyshire Dales over to Whalley Bridge in the High Peak. In the first part we look at the section of the railway that was extended to meet with the main railway line. During the conception of the Cromford and High Peak Railway, canals were in fashion and railways hadn’t really taken off yet. The line exists as there was a desire to connect the Peak Forest canal (Manchester's industry in the West) to the Cromford Canal and the various industry in the East Midlands. A canal was considered but the number of locks to cross the peak district would be enormous. So instead, a tramroad, or tramway was decided to be the way forward. Horse drawn with rope inclines at several locations to pull the wagons up the steep gradients. An extremely ambitious venture at the time coming only a handful of years after the Stockton and Darlington railway. This makes it one of the world oldest railways. The 33 mile long line opened at the turn of the 1830s connecting the two canals and shortly after the horses were replaced with steam engines. The inclines were powered by static steam engines that we will see in later episodes. We’ll see as we progress down the line, various challenges that ultimately led to the line's closure. Apart from a few quarry lines, the railway closed in stages up to 1967. These days a large portion of the line is accessible as the High Peak Trail. *the 1853 extention* By the mid nineteenth century, railways were starting to take over and canals were on the decline. The nearby Midland Railway (or Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midland Junction Railway as it was known then) passed through Cromford, arriving in 1849 and given the Cromford & High Peak Railway didn’t connect to any other railways, it was decided to extend soutwards by a few miles to join the two together. And this is where the high peak junction where we start this video connected in 1853. Buy me a coffee - https://ko-fi.com/wobblyrunner Facebook -   / wobbly.runner   Instagram -   / wobbly.runner