Cresswell – Cheadle branch

Cresswell – Cheadle branch
Construction of the tunnel in the 1890s
Ordnance Survey map of the former tunnel route and bypass, 1937–1949
Gauge :	First 1435 mm in the tunnel later 914 mm
Legend Cheadle Decommissioned in 1963 Draycott Cross Tunnel Shut down in 1933 Tean (formerly Totmonslow) Closed in 1953 Cresswell on the Crewe – Derby railway line

The branch line Cresswell - Cheadle ( English : Cheadle Branch Line) was operated from 1892 to 1963 for the passenger traffic and until 1986 for the freight traffic 4 miles (6.4 km kilometers) long standard gauge railway line in Staffordshire .

Planning and construction

The first plans for the line date back to 1849, but it wasn't until 1887 that the Cheadle Railway, Mineral & Land Co. Ltd was founded, and construction of the line began the following year: the first sod was turned on March 22, 1888 in Totmonslow . Due to financial problems, the first section from Cresswell to Totmonslow was not opened until November 7, 1892. The first train drove from Totmonslow on the Potteries Loop Line to Tunstall , and the regular service was carried out for almost the entire service life of the branch line.

Construction of the extension to Cheadle began in 1893. A new colliery called New Haden Colliery was opened in Draycott , where an extension of the route for freight traffic had already been put into operation. A tunnel was built for the new section with great difficulty. This crossed a sandstone ridge before turning east and leading to a stop on the southern outskirts of Cheadle. The new section was also fraught with financial problems, and the line did not fully open until January 1, 1901.

In December 1906, Totmonslow Station was renamed Tean, although Upper Tean village was a mile to the east. On January 1, 1907, the North Staffordshire Railway inherited the route from the Cheadle Railway Company; Up until that point, they had only provided the transport services but were not the route owner.

Construction of the tunnel bypass

Draycott Cross Tunnel
use	First as a railway tunnel, later as a coal mine
Coordinates
North	52 ° 58 ′ 11 ″  N , 2 ° 1 ′ 0 ″  W.
south	52 ° 58 ′ 11 ″  N , 2 ° 1 ′ 0 ″  W.

The problems with the maintenance of the tunnel began almost at the same time as its completion. Some places had to be supported. In November 1918 part of the tunnel collapsed, after which the line could not be operated for almost a month. During the repair construction work, the freight wagons loaded with coal could be pushed by a locomotive under a scaffolding on which the construction workers carried out the repairs. These could then be pulled out from the other side with another locomotive, as the scaffolding was only high enough for the wagons but not for the locomotives.

After the North Staffordshire Railway was integrated into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923 due to the Railways Act 1921 , problems with the tunnel became even more common. In 1932, the construction of a new bypass was finally started. This circled the hill in the east merged back into the old route near the Cheadle station. The new bypass route was opened in 1933.

At the beginning of the Second World War there were only two passenger trains per day and five relocated on Saturday. In 1943, the New Haden Colliery was closed by the Department of Fuel and Energy to move the 500 miners to more efficient pits in support of the war effort, reducing freight traffic by 3,000 tons per week. A brickworks adjacent to the colliery as well as increasing sand traffic from nearby sand pits, which were mainly delivered on the road to Cheadle, continued to be customers of the railroad.

Use of the tunnel as a coal mine

The tunnel portals were bricked up and the route from the south was dismantled soon afterwards, but the northern section of the old line remained as a siding to the New Haden Colliery. All trains to and from the coal mine therefore had to drive backwards from Cheadle.

The southern portal was used as a small private colliery that was operated from 1983 to 1991. Before the portal was bricked up and secured with a locked gate, most of the mining equipment remained in the tunnel. After several Urban Explorer break-ins documented on the Internet , the south portal was cordoned off with a concrete wall for security reasons.

Operated by British Railways

As with many other railroads in the county, passenger numbers dwindled in the 1950s and some lines were closed, but the Cheadle branch survived, although only three passenger trains and one freight train in each direction were used on weekdays. The Tean station was closed on June 1, 1953 under British Railways. Before this point in time, their status had already been reduced to an unoccupied breakpoint. In 1958, diesel multiple units replaced the trains drawn by steam locomotives on the Loop Line , but this could hardly stop the decline in passenger numbers. At the time of the Beeching Ax, it was already planned to cease passenger transport, so that the last passenger train left Cheadle on Saturday, June 17, 1963 at 5:07 p.m. The last works were.

Freight traffic to the nearby quarry lasted until 1978, when the freight contract expired. From then on, freight traffic was used exclusively for railway construction, and the last train was operated in 1986.

Recommissioning

Overgrown tracks at Cresswell

After a shutdown of almost 22 years, when the InterCity Charter Train Unit was launched on March 28, 1985 , a passenger train consisting of several Pullman cars again drove to Cheadle, from where the passengers took the bus to Alton Towers were brought. However, plans for a regular service to transport visitors to the park by rail could not be realized, and the route subsequently remained unused. The last train to Cheadle was a weed killing train in the summer of 1985.

Today, most of the route is heavily overgrown, but still free of buildings, with the exception of the last 400 meters, which were dismantled in 1994 to make way for a new housing estate. The northern portal of the tunnel was filled in during open-cast mining activities.

In October 2011, Moorland & City Railways formed a company to look into the possibility of reopening the line. The line was leased from Network Rail and overhanging trees were cut back in March 2012. The remaining line was dismantled after it was found that around 600 meters of track had been stolen by Christmas 2011. The route could be used as a pedestrian and cycle path until a decision is made about the future of the route.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thursday 22nd MARCH 1888 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} Draycott Cross Colliery & the Cheadle Branch Railway . Subterranea Britannica. Retrieved September 4, 2007.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Allan C. Baker: The Cheadle Railway . The Oakwood Press, 1979, ISBN 0-85361-248-X .
4. ↑ Mark Forrest and Geoff Cook: New Haden Colliery. Stafford Railway Circle.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Railways in Draycott . Archived from the original on May 11, 2006. Retrieved September 7, 2007.
6. ↑ Draycott Cross Colliery & the Cheadle Branch Railway.
7. ↑ Draycott Cross Colliery & the Cheadle Branch Railway (continued).
8. ↑ Draycott Cross Colliery, Staffordshire.
9. ↑ 28 Days Later.
10. ^ ^{A b} Hugh Ballantyne: British Railways Past & Present: North Staffordshire and the Trent Valley . Past & Present Publishing Ltd, 2005, ISBN 1-85895-204-2 .
11. ^ Terry Moors: North Staffordshire Railways: Scenes from the 1980s . Landmark Publishing Ltd, Ashbourne 2007, ISBN 1-84306-347-6 .
12. ^ ^{A b c} Steve Broadbent: Looks like Leek's luck may change . In: Rail . No. 701, July 25 - August 7, 2012, p. 68.
13. ↑ Metal thieves fail to derail plans for restored train line . In: The Sentinel , April 30, 2012. Retrieved August 2, 2012. 

Coordinates: 52 ° 58 '10.6 "  N , 2 ° 1' 0.4"  W.