Ecclesbourne Valley Railway

Wirksworth, principal town of the Derbyshire lead-mining district, and was also a textile centre, noted for the Haarlem Mill of 1780, perhaps the first cotton spinning factory in which steam power was employed, and for the production of the red tape used to tie together government documents. Wirksworth was served by a branch railway from Duffield on the main line of the Midland Railway from Derby to Sheffield and Manchester through the Derwent Valley, which opened in 1867. Its principal traffics were limestone, milk and textiles. Passenger services were withdrawn in 1947-49, but the branch was used for testing diesel railcars in the 1950s. Stone traffic ceased from the early 1990s, and in 1992 WyvernRail was formed, a community-owned, locally-managed organisation with the aim of re-opening the line as a heritage railway. A light railway order was obtained in 1996, and trains were run over a short section at Wirksworth from 2002. In 2005 WyvernRail adopted the station at Duffield which is served by an hourly service of trains from Nottingham through Derby to Matlock, and from 2011 has operated trains from a temporary station at Wirksworth to Duffield branded the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway. A unique feature is the use of diesel railcars of which the line has twelve from the period of the British Railways Modernisation Plan of 1955. The collection also includes four steam shunting locomotives, three diesel shunters and two main line diesel locomotives. WyvernRail hopes in due course to build a new station at Wirksworth. A short and steep branch from Wirksworth to Ravenstone, graded at 1 in 27, served the National Stone Centre. The LMS (London, Midland & Scottish Railway) Carriage Association has one of its workshops at Wirksworth.
 

Ecclesbourne Valley Railway
Wirksworth Station Station Road Coldwell Street
DE4 4FB Wirksworth
Derbyshire
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1629 - 823076
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