The Ecclesbourne Valley Railway DEVELOPING DAY-TO-DAY
A NINE-mile branch line from Duffield, only a dozen miles from Derby, to serve the industries around Wirksworth was originally opened in the 1860s.
It was part of the second ‘boom’ in railway building, built by the pre-Grouping heavyweight and a dominant regional player, the Midland Railway.
During construction, the railway was forced to build a huge viaduct over the line to accommodate the needs of a local farmer; it was the most substantial bridge along the route, though it never carried trains!
This ‘white elephant’ was blown up, as part of military training, in the early-1930s. Being of some interest, the event was recorded by British Pathé films, and can still be viewed online.
Agricultural produce was an important source of income for the line, providing the railway with its ‘milk and honey line’ slogan today. Locally mined stone was also exported by rail, meaning the line avoided the fate of many other branch lines of the period, namely total reliance on one traffic. Passenger services on the line were offered until the 1940s.
The railway survived the culling of secondary routes and branches in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to its stone traffic, a bulky material which can be less easily transferred to road transport than other products. Class 25 and 47 diesels were used on the line through the 1970s and 1980s, along with visiting ‘Sprinter’ units on occasional special train workings.
Many will recall the branch was used by British Rail
