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I set the MDLR in a real location, so I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to show where the line would have run, had it been built as I imagine it.
A typical spar mine - the sort of industry the line was built to serve.
Had the line been built, I would have been standing on the level crossing at the end of Monyash station to take this picture......
......... and looking in the other direction, the Flagg Extension would have wandered off into the moors.
The station yard would have been here.
The station at Lathkill Dale would have had to be very small, with no parking nearer than the present Disabled Car Park, about 50 yards up a VERY steep hill!
When the river (which is where the horses are walking) was in flow, there would have been very little room for anything other than a single platform on the right hand side of this shot.
Conksbury Bridge would have had a halt..........
......... with the railway coming down the right-hand side on the upstream side of the bridge...........
............. and on the left hand side on the downstream side.
The main line would have come down Lathkill Dale........
............. into Alport Junction station, roughly where the trees are.
..... whilst the Youlgreave Branch would have faced a fearsome gradient to reach a station and yard in this field.................
.......... which runs parallel to the main street, behind the one row of houses.
There would have had to have been a shelf cut for the line where it runs alongside the left hand side of the A524, seen here towards the A6 and Bakewell .............
........................ though not so much in some places as in others.
Having "turned the corner" where the A524 meets the A6.................
..........the line would run past Haddon Hall on the opposite side of the A6 to the house - far enough away!
Traffic on the A6 would have been interrupted by MDLR trains crossing a level crossing (at a very slight angle to the road) somewhere along this stretch.
The line would have come towards the photographer in this shot................
.......... across the Showground..............
...... reaching the Bakewell terminus which would have been roughly where the partially-erected marquee is on the Showground............
.............. where there are a couple of foot bridges into town. |
