Matlock - Work in Progress

The centre of Matlock is still dominated by Environment Agency work to improve flood defences. The station, already tightly hemmed into the urban landscape on the west side of town is currently not accessible using its own approach road. We parked at Sainsbury’s and took the dedicated footpath to the town centre and then the modern footbridge that straddles the station site itself.

Work was clearly also ongoing behind the scaffolding for the original station buildings on platform one. Additionally, Peak Rail’s website says it is presently working on “a new way of getting into platform two” and so trains currently turn back towards Rowsley at Matlock Riverside. A two-car Class 156 unit left on its journey towards Derby soon after we arrived.

Chatsworth was hosting a large-scale sculptures exhibition entitled Radical Horizons, and many of the pieces were ingenious and amusing. The highlight for me, however, was the kingfisher on the opposite bank of the Derwent, untroubled by the steady flow of visitors to his domain on our side of the river, and very much hard at work. He had found a productive patch of water below the riverbank and some sturdy ferns to fish from. Though we have seen kingfishers many times, I’ve never witnessed one actually fishing before. They are usually hurrying from one post to another along the Trent and mainly spotted in flight. This one obliged by returning to his perch with his latest catch clearly visible in his beak.

  

Crossing the Tracks

With friends in Collingham earlier in the week, we took a walk alongside the railway. This is a village with a direct train service to London King’s Cross these days and an Azuma unit was passing as we arrived. Our circular walk took us out over a conventional marked footpath across the railway and back along a minor road crossing with shiny, modern, metal gates but in the traditional style. These only open outwards across the road and are operated under strict instructions by the road vehicle user, which is most likely to be farm traffic. Flat road crossings are much more common on this side of the country and especially in the lower Trent valley, where the topography did not lead itself so readily to bridge construction. The former crossing keeper’s cottage here has long been a private house.

2.10.0

Class 9F No. 92214 was at Loughborough Central station yesterday at the head of the blood and custard rake on a driver experience special. Green suits her well, as it did for Evening Star, when I first spotted her - in steam on the main line outside Cardiff station, when shedded at East Dock in the mid-60s. That was a little before a large proportion of the remainder of the class descended on Birkenhead sheds for the last couple of years of steam in the north west of England.