Ripley Branch Line Old railway Denby to Coxbench (Part 2). January 2024

Dave enjoys the advantages of a mild winter day for a three-part trip along an interesting suburban railway route running down the dales of East Derbyshire.
The Ripley Branch line once connected the small railways of Langley Mill and Erewash Valley to the Midland Main Line just north of Derby, running through Marehay, Denby Kilburn, Coxbench and Little Eaton en route.
A casualty of the Beeching Cuts (surprise surprise) it closed it's regular passenger runs in the 1950s after almost exactly a century of commutes, still operating as a goods, colliery and charter train branch as far north as Denby until the late 1990s.
For the second of the three part journey, Dave bolts along the former track bed between Denby station site - where some former buffers still hibernate across the road - and Coxbench, travelling via Kilburn.
Quite a generous amount of former trackbed including ballast to see with the remaining single line running up to Denby only having been finally relieved of its misery in 2012, though the odd bridge or two as well as just about all level crossings also went with it, as Dave duly helps us find out. Tasty trinkets of evidence still around include former huts, remains of a foot crossing, a few level crossing gates as well as spots of discarded sleepers, not to mention a short little bit of surviving track and a concrete tunnel beneath the A38.
DISCLAIMER:
Just to be warned that there are a number of glitches and pixelations throughout the video - this is caused by limitations to the availability of technology and editing/ recording memory on the device used to produce a video at the time.
#ripley
#oldrailway
#derby
#derbyshire
#railwayline