The railway which started as a canal

Yes, many canals were bought out by railway companies, some of which used the canal bed to lay their rails, but the canal I'm talking about was proposed in the early 1820s to connect the Cromford Canal at Cromford in Derbyshire with the Peak Forest Canal at Whaley Bridge, then in Cheshire (but now, seemingly, also in Derbyshire). It was quickly realised that the terrain was just too hilly for a canal, so the Cromford and High Peak Railway was built instead, completed in 1831. A good source of information is this website.


The original engineer was Josiah Jessop, son of the canal builder William Jessop. I'll post pictures of impressive embankments later, but for now here's a random selection of my photos from when we walked along it.


Above is Hopton Tunnel; below is one of the huge number of wild flowers along the route.


The route of the Cromford and High Peak Railway has been converted into a very well maintained "trail" for walkers and cyclists between Cromford and Parsley Hay, south of Buxton. There are occasional bits of railway hardware remaining - some mileposts and signals - as well as the big things such as bridges, tunnels and winding houses for the inclines. I didn't mention the inclines, did I? (But you might have deduced that from the rather steep slope indicated in the top photo.) There were nine of them - now eight after two were combined - where the wagons were hauled up on a steel rope between the tracks. In another similarity with canals, for the first 30 years of the railway wagons were horse-drawn on the "levels" between inclines. And, no, they didn't have to step over sleepers: the rails were held in position on individual stone blocks.