Peak Rail General Discussion

Is there any chances of any of the above actually ever realistically happening???

Peak rail have been on for years about extending beyond rowsley but nothing ever happens. I know there's a ton of obstacles in the way & finances etc are stretched but for joe bloggs visiting the line there isn't much progress to be seen.

 

Not only is Bakewell a honeypot, it's the sort of quaint, craft shop bedecked honeypot which would have raised my late nan's heart rate to medically inadvisable levels. It has a high street off of a Christmas card, and of course it's the home of Bakewell pudding. Epic vintage cycling festival L'Heroica Britannia https://eroicabritannia.co.uk/ rolls into town each summer, offering a ready made co-promotion opportunity for Peak Rail. It's the model for Lambton, where Elizabeth Bennett realises that she's in love with Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. In short, it's the kind of pretty, tourist swamped destination which is a natural fit for a heritage railway.

You're right, the station is up a hill from the town centre; but that means that the walk into town is downhill and is in any case only about four hundred yards. And yes, the station building is occupied; but the platforms are clear and it looks like you might just be able to hide a new café building behind the original platform shelter supporting wall, even if a deal can't be done with the occupier of the main building.

 

The latest weekend rails blog post has a bit more to say on the shareholders matter.

 

Ok I will conquer my negativity and visit next weekend. It’s the last normal weekend pre Santa if anyone fancies a visit.


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S&T
Small update this time as We've all been doing different things in the department this week.

Andrew and myself started on the maintenance for winter with the oiling greasing and point gauging at Darley and church lane done midweek before dark, Rowsley and riverside coming next, I Also checked out an intermittent gate lock not picking fault, and I've to do a signal lamp fault when next down.

John has continued work on the riverside rail oiler ,the pump works but we're keeping an eye on the flow out the mechanism itself as being out of season now and not many trains running it will take a while for the grease to work its way up the pipes to the applicator

John has arranged for around two hundred bricks to be delivered which were donated to us at Rowsley, these will be used in the floor of the base of the box.

David has been busy with more inside work on the cabin for Rowsley,clearing out the remnants of our works,he's also looking at the restoration of the donated midland signal arm to go up at Church lane over winter.

I've purchased some fairly new scaffolding which makes a five section tower,which comes from a chap in Whaley bridge who had to go into care and his neighbour has been clearing out his old stores to help him out, this should allow us to get proper access to the roofs of the boxes ,I'm thinking its first use will be to get the finials onto the roof of the box at Rowsley soon.

On the 18th I'm at the Severn Valley Railway doing the talk on modern systems,practices and components in heritage railways,I'm doing a small talk on Peak Rail in line with this.

I'm planning to be around this Saturday to carry on with work and maintenance, so will do another update then, until then stay warm folks.

ROWSLEY

Harvey has been very busy working on the carriage bogies of the lifted carriage, the Ashover gang have stripped one of the ex Duxford coaches down to its frames to start restoration of the framework and then the coach itself and Kev is on with two water columns to be restored for reuse.

 

According to Google Maps, Macclesfield and Matlock are only 30 miles apart. Lend a hand to make it happen, perhaps?

 

Macclesfield?

 

Luke McMahon's location apparently (listed under his name beside his postings)

Keith

 

Yep macclesfield so not that far away, atm due to caring for a family member who's rather ill I sadly can't get hands on yet.

Although as soon as I'm able to I'm looking to get involved somewhere.

 

OK, I see.

 

Busy day , started off with oiling and greasing the rowsley signaling and ground frames, then moved onto helping out the D8 gang with some.electrical work on a.load regulator bank which needed fault finding, eventually traced to some snapped terminal studs preventing the resistor bank from cutting into use.

A couple of lamp faults were also undertaken.

Loco bits

Whilst I didn't get to chat with the Ashover gang or Mr Briddon who were all working away in their respective sheds I did note the oil waggon under restoration has now started to have its wooden frame.ends cut and fitted(pic Attached). Also the class 25 continues with bodywork and cab repairs, the radiator unit has been craned out for work and access.

The prairie continues to have its frames.cleaned.down and repainted, chatting last time with one of the gang they noted the pony truck wheels were to go for refettling soon too.

 

Whilst WW3 seems to rage around them the dedicated volunteers at Rowsley keep calm and carry on, like the Ashover lads who have stripped the wood panels off one of the two Duxford coaches and will shorten the body frame so that the coaches can be coupled to their stock at bogie level. They think the coaches were built in the 1980s for the demonstration line at Duxford but any further info would be useful.

Waterman Trust 56XX 6634 arrived on Friday, well the chassis and a load of bits anyway, but not the boiler. So that's 4 GWR locos on site presently, a well known volunteer now passed on will be spinning in his grave!

Dave

 

I haven't seen notice of this? Are there details?

Thanks

Patrick

 

It's the IRSE (Institution of Railway Signal Engineers) Minor Railways Section - Biennial technical seminar so is not generally advertised. Other topics being presented include the North Yorkshire Moors Railway electric token block over broadband and Norden Gates level crossing on the Swanage Railway.

 

Ah, thanks Emma

Patrick

 

Just had a nose at bakewell town councils draft development plan up to 2030, it includes support of reinstatement of the railway, it will go to referendum and if voted for will become statutory. On the other hand members of the PDNP recently adopted a policy that rules out support for a heritage railway, unless they can reinstate the full route back to buxton, and the chances of that are nil, though I'm unsure of the source and validity of that last statement. Bakewell is a very civically active town, and if PR have their support to extend to bakewell, then I'm hopeful of their chances.

 

@fearof manchester
You are telling us that it's the end of Peak rail dream!but we know it since a soo long time
Personally I think that PR will very soon disappear!it's quite the end of an impossible dream!
Marc-noel

 

I don’t think that’s a constructive comment. There is another thread “Peak Rail Annual Report” which is a better place for negativity but even that should be searching for a positive outcome.

I visited PR at the weekend and, whatever else, there seem to be facilities and volunteers moving things along.....joltingly.

Peak Rail has a limited public/social media presence so these updates are a valuable insight and it would be good not to see them hounded off, as with other lines, by negativity.


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I don’t think that’s a constructive comment. There is another thread “Peak Rail Annual Report” which is a better place for negativity but even that should be searching for a positive outcome.

I visited PR at the weekend and, whatever else, there seem to be facilities and volunteers moving things along.....joltingly.

Peak Rail has a limited public/social media presence so these updates are a valuable insight and it would be good not to see them hounded off, as with other lines, by negativity.


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I understand that English isn't your first language but I didn't say it was the end of peak rail, I said they are very unlikely to get back to buxton in line with the national parks policy of supporting them, I did say that with the support of the people of bakewell the likelihood of extending as far as there was increased and looked a more positive development.