Leek to Waterhouses + Leek & Manifold Railway. North Staffordshire’s Lost Railways.
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- Опубликовано: 9 сен 2021
- We follow the disused section of the Leek & Manifold line from Leek station through to Hulme End station.
The Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway (L&MVLR) was a narrow gauge railway in Staffordshire, England that operated between 1904 and 1934. The line mainly carried milk from dairies in the region, acting as a feeder to the 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge system. It also provided passenger services to the small villages and beauty spots along its route. The line was built to a 2 ft 6 in narrow gauge and to the light rail standards to reduce construction costs.
The North Staffordshire Railway's branch from Leek ended at Waterhouses. The L&MVLR continued from an end-on junction with this line. It ran for 8+1⁄4 miles (13.28 km) down the valley of the River Hamps as far as Beeston Tor, before turning up the limestone gorge that the River Manifold had formed, through to Hulme End. The line had a large number of stations in a relatively short distance, and there were refreshment rooms at Thor's Cave and Beeston Tor. In all the line crossed the river Manifold dozens of times - including nine times in the short section between Sparrowlee and Beeston Tor.
All stations had rather grand signs (sometimes grander than the facilities) and platforms were just 6 inches (152 mm) high. All stations had sidings except for Beeston Tor and Redhurst Halt.
Hulme End station was a large building, with adjacent engine and coach sheds (two roads in each). On the timetable it was described as "Hulme End for Hartington". Hartington being some 3 miles (4.8 km) distant.
Ecton station had both a standard gauge and narrow gauge siding, with a narrow gauge extension to the milk factory. The presence of the railway did not kick-start the local mining industry, as hoped.
Butterton station (also known locally as Ecton Lea) had a waiting room. There was a siding.
Wetton Mill station had a station with waiting room, and a standard gauge siding. (It had ceased to be a working mill before the railway was built.)
At Redhurst Halt an old coach served as a waiting room. There was no siding here.
Thor's Cave station largely served Wetton village. It had a waiting room. Its refreshment room was moved to Wetton in 1917.
Grindon station, located at Weags Bridge, had a loop containing a 75 feet (22.86 m) standard gauge siding.
Beeston Tor station had no siding, but a refreshment room.
Sparrowlee station served Lee House Farm, but nowhere else, and there was not even a waiting room here. The siding included a 60 feet (18.29 m) standard gauge section.
At Waterhouses station the platform had booking offices, and there was a goods shed. There were two short loops, and three short sidings which joined with standard gauge lines. At Waterhouses the timetable allowed for connections from Leek.
The line was a single track. Trains ran at a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour (24.1 km/h), and most halts were run on a request basis. More than this, the train would also often stop to pick up passengers at other places on the lineside footpath, if requested.
Passenger traffic was minimal - the settlements were mostly some distance from the line - except on Bank Holidays when all the line's rolling stock was used to run frequent services to handle the crowds.
There was some talk of extending the line northwards, whereby Hulme End (and its engine shed) would become the half-way point of the line, but this never materialised.
Trains started and finished at Hulme End, at the northern end of the line, where the engine sheds were located.
After opening, there were initially three trains daily in each direction. This increased to four on Thursdays and Saturdays (and later to five).
The most important traffic on the line was from the Express Dairies creamery at Ecton. Most of the product was destined via dedicated milk trains for London. Initially all the milk was carried in milk churns, which had to be manhandled across the platforms at Waterhouses. But after the First World War the churns were loaded into standard gauge vans taken to and from Ecton on the transporter wagons. Eventually milk tankers were also used, again being transferred between Ecton and Waterhouses on the transporters. The importance of the milk traffic was such that between 1919 and 1926, special milk trains ran direct between Waterhouses and London. The year after the closure of the creamery in 1933, the L&MVLR closed.
After the withdrawal of the passenger services in 1935, freight traffic continued until 1964 when the goods facilities at Bradnop, Ipstones and Winkhill were withdrawn.
The transport of limestone mineral traffic from Caldon Low quarries was the main interest of the NSR in constructing the line as the company were the leaseholders of the quarry. There was an increase in traffic and limestone continued to be moved by train from Caldon Low until 1988.
Brilliant hidden history … Thank you
The amount of infrastructure that was just abandoned after road networks were built is incredible. We are lucky to have channels like this that help preserve the memory of how complex and thorough such good lines from farms were.
You have some of the best lost railways content on RUclips. Deserve more subs
I take my hat off to you sir for creating a fascinating account of some railways both standard gauge and narrow gauge in a beautiful part of England. Without people like you taking the time to make these wonderful documentaries, our children would have no sense of our railway heritage. Keep up the good work. And thank you so much!
Great stuff as usual. I’ve just asked a mate of mine who used to be a Stoke driver if he went to Caldon Low. He said he used to swap to do that job, he enjoyed it that much.
Thank you for including historic photos of railroad side-by-side with views in the video!
Watching the British railroads shown in your videos I'm taken by what appears to be much care and labor in building the stone structures and railroad alignment. I do wish from my somewhat narrow perspective when building a path it would honor the railroad alignment by following it precisely. Using the centerline between dual tracks also accomplish this.
I was surprised there were mile makers in fractions of a mile such as 3/4 of a mile. In the USA if the railroad miles are marked they are only by the mile. There were distances noted in "chain" lengths on some structures! Chain lengths are only known in old surveying books in the USA. As a measuring device chains are very precise.
Getting video of the narrow gauge showing how the standard gauge wagons were hand rolled onto the narrow gauge holding cars was very informative. I wouldn't have believed such an operation was realistic otherwise. It would be interesting on some old railroads to show where a horse may have walked when pulling railroad wagons around. That was not a practice in the USA and it explains why British railroad wagons were built to the size they were.
Much of the time if a railroad grade is holding water it can be traced to clogged drainage systems and not do to sloppy design. Another situation is when outside structures greatly increase or start dumping stormwater into the railroad. For your future travels in over grown areas a top quality 10" folding pruning saw can be used like a machete for cutting tall grasses and will cut through small branches in a couple pulls. It can fit in your back pocket. Amazon UK has them.
Thanks for doing the Leek & Manifold
walked this line 2 years ago thanks for the memories.
Thank goodness for enthusiasts like you.
Thanks, having walked a bit of the line and visited the weight station, it was good to hear about the history.
Nice to see the finished product mate, I know what works gone into this.
Thanks for this. Even though ive never heard of some of these lines its great for them to be preserved on video as to what is left of them and where they used to run! :)
Great Stuff, keep em coming!!!
Would be fantastic to see the Churnet Valley reclaim the trackbed... would make the Railway a lot more of an attraction!
Thanks for some great vids, love following your adventures on old maps. Have a great Xmas, here's to next year 👍
excellent video 👍shame it closed loved the clips of film's how it used to be riding on the train i did a walk on the old crab and winkle line between whitstable station and Canterbury West station 7.5 miles took 2.5 hours penalty of cyclists use it now there hoping to extend it to whitstable harbour
(17:50), Nice vintage clip, I didn't know the railway used transporters? Jim from northern New York.
Why does the Caldon Low line keep being brought back then abandoned then brought back and so on? It needs to be brought back and kept in use - full stop!
Hi there you have shown all the disused railway's around Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, Merseyside, Lancashire and South Yorkshire area's those are all of the good youtube videos of the old disused railways and everyone likes it and thumbs up.
Would it be OK if you can travel further up the North East of England by filming and videoing the 3 old disused railways like the Bishop Auckland to Carnforth, Appleby and Alston.
And also could you video and film the Northallerton to Garsdale known as the Wensleydale disused railway line.
It would be great if you could film those 3 old disused railway lines around County Durham, Cumbria and North Yorkshire it will be great if you can come and film those 3 disused railway lines and put on the RUclips channel as a new part.
It would be great if you could do that and everyone will like a new video of those old 3 disused railway lines here in the North East of England.
So is that sound OK with you.
Thanks any written by Gareth Orr.
P. S no one dair not to put any thumbs down on my RUclips comment.
As anyone adked why they took yhe track up such a shame
You should do the old silverdale line here in stoke. plenty of track down and a 684yrd tunnel.
Thx for that, next spring when veg low….defo
How do you get here
Lovely part of the country, a few A roads and your in the middle of paradise…. That’s why I did 3 videos in this region, people are very friendly