LOCAL railways around the world and their eccentric operations have often come across as charming and the whimsical in their operation. The Southwold railway where trains would stop in the middle of nowhere for the guard to bag a rabbit, if he saw one, for his cook pot.
The main line that ran according to tides – as it connected with the boat train. The Irish line which had to balance loads each side of the wagons (hung from one central rail) and solved the problem of how to send a cow to market by sending two calves along too on the other side – and bringing them back one either side in the pannier-like trucks.
The headland railway where to give the horse a break, a mast would be erected on the truck and it would sail down the line, given the right wind.
Firmly in this tradition is England’s newest railway which I rode at the opening weekend – the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway.
I liked it not just because it makes a proper connection at the main line at Duffield, near Derby, with well timetabled connections of a few minutes each way plus through ticketing. Locals even now proudly boast: ‘Wirksworth to Paris in only three changes!’ Wirksworth is the charming higgledy-piggledy stone-built town at the other end of the ten-mile line. None of that going from nowhere to nowhere of some restored railways, but a real means of transport for local people. How many Parisians turn up remain to be seen, mais, bien sur, if they go, they will like it.
I loved it not only because of the sheer bucolic beauty of this river valley: primroses, blossom adorning every hedge, lambs springing about for the sheer fun of it, the stream chuckling along beside and often under the tracks. It’s not a grand railway with ornate stations or massive tunnels and viaducts: just a country branch that somehow survived more or less intact.
I loved it not only for the sheer achievement of rebuilding track that was lost in thickets of vegetation into a very high standard of track – despite losing its passenger service as long ago as 1947 and the remaining freight in 1989.
But also for the eccentricity in its level crossing operation, which gave me some feeling of the human nature typical of such a sleepy country line.
One was just after the intermediate station of Idridgehay – what a charming name. The crossing gate man was, a railwayman on the train told me (who was wearing his cap with EVR in metal letters on the peak), a stalwart volunteer who had worked hard for years in the rebuilding of the line. ‘He got diagnosed with cancer not long ago, so he’s on chemotherapy and having a very hard time. But he wouldn’t miss the opening of the line for anything.’
Approaching Wirksworth, the engine nears another crossing at Gorsey Bank with those white gates across the tracks and stops well short. The fireman walks up the tracks a seemingly unnecessary 100 yards to open the gates.
The reason?
‘It’s an old chap’s pigeons.’
What?
‘He says it upsets them having a railway engine stop right opposite, but they don’t mind if it goes past. So we stop short and do the gates from there.’
# The Ecclesbourne Valley Railway is based at Wirksworth Station, Derbyshire, DE4 4FB, tel: 01629 823076. www.e-v-r.com
Tags: derbyshire, preserved lines, rail, railway, steam, trains, wirksworth
April 11, 2011 at 11:42 am |
‘Wirksworth to Paris in only three changes!’ – it’s got to be done …