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The Midland Railway through the Peak District | |||
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John Morten gave us a most impressive presentation on the History of the Peak District line of the Midland Railway joining Derby to Manchester Central (Now the GMEX building!). The slide images were a mixture of those taken by his father and by himself and spanned the time interval 1920’s to the present day. We saw, early on, a very young John standing alone on a station platform besides a large iron, smoke and steam emitting, beast, and at the end, a picture of his father recording yet another engine. In his photographic journey along the line we saw images of the stations as they were, pre-war, and contrasted them with how they looked now. Many of us have walked the trails, passed over the viaducts, and by the platforms left by the defunct lines and found it fascinating to see how grand and how very busy they once appeared. Once open landscapes and busy junctions now appear as wooded plains and slopes, and often it is hard to imagine the line passing through the trees and new buildings. Some lines remain, sustained by the limestone quarrying industry, I asked John to recall the talk in his own words. He writes:- This subject was illustrated with monochrome and colour slides covering a period from the 1920s to the present day. The photographs were taken by the late E.R.Morten (a noted photographer of railway subjects) and by club member John Morten who had made the mono slides and compiled the talk We followed the Midland Railway (which later became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (the LMS) from its heart-land at Derby, through Ambergate, with its sharp curve and triangular station, to Rowsley where the route was halted for twelve years while negotiations took place with the Dukes of Devonshire and Rutland at Chatsworth and Haddon. The original 1849 station is now part of the Peak Village complex at Rowsley. When the line was eventually continued northwards, it followed the valley of the river Wye which it crossed and re-crossed on its way towards Buxton. Photographs recorded the picturesque route through Cromford and the Victorian's 'Little Switzerland" at Matlock Bath. Trains were shown at Bakewell in the 1930s and 1960s, while a 2005 shot showed the station now, as part of the Monsal Trail. Views of the famous Monsal Viaduct, with hard-working steam hauled freight trains and the sleek 'Midland Pullman' crossing the structure, led on to the most dramatic section of the route. Victorian engineers andnavvies blasted through rocks, built ledges on the valley side and bridges across the Wye as the line progressed northwards to Millers Dale and beyond. After the interval we heard about some of the cameras used, from an Ensign Roll-Film Reflex (6 X 9cm negatives) a post war British Agiflex (6 X 6cm) a Periflex (35mm) and on into the modern era. The mono slides were made by re-photographing anew print onto colour positive film using tungsten illumination and correction filters or slave flash. A 1936 colour slide used the 'Dufaycolor' process to give an early example of a colour shot of amoving train. Buxton's two 1863 stations, in similar style, were shown and the demise of the Midland Railway's station was illustrated. Back on the "main line' we headed towards Manchester via Chapel and Chinley, where the backdrop of Kinder Scout rangemade for scenic railway shots. A picture at Manchester Central station in 1947 showed the first British main-line diesel locomotive (number 10000) about to leave for London over the Peak Line - a sign of things to come in the transition from steam power. The pictures shown are just a small part of what is now a historic archive of railway history. John Morten |
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