(A description of one of the last journeys taken by passengers on the High Peak Railway)

“It was in August 1877, and thinking I should like to see the country through which it passed, I went to Stonehouse, generally called ‘Stonnis’, just by the Black Rocks, where the railway crosses the Wirksworth Road and inquired of a man in the office for the train.

‘Do you mean “the fly”? was the reply. ‘Yes’. (The official brought back word that it had gone, but that if I followed it up the line I might catch it at the siding; and if not, I should be sure to overtake it at ‘Middleton Run’). I accordingly gave chase and at length caught sight of it being drawn up the incline by a rope and a stationary engine. A man at the bottom inquired if I wished to catch ‘the fly’, and added. ‘I will stop it for you at the top’, which he did by a signal.

A quarter of a mile ahead I joined it. My fellow-travellers were then a young woman and a child, and the vehicle in which we sat was like an old omnibus. The guard stood in the middle and worked the brake through a hole in the floor.

A locomotive now drew us three or four miles to the foot of another incline, up which we were drawn by a rope. When reaching the summit the guard remarked: ‘We may have to wait at the top.’ ‘How long’? I inquired. ‘Oh it may be five minutes,’ he replied, ‘or a few hours. It all depends upon when the engine comes to take us on. Yesterday,’ he added, ‘it did not come at all.’

To while away the time I walked along the line, and my fellow-passengers went mushrooming. In about three hours an engine came from Whaley Bridge to fetch us, and after the driver, fireman, and guard had refreshed themselves at a little public house not far away, and had freely commented on their ‘horse’, they went back along the line, brought up ‘the fly’, and having refreshed themselves again, we started.

At one part of the journey a flock of sheep were quietly feeding or resting on the line. ‘Just see them’, said the guard as we approached, ‘jump the walls’; and they did it like dogs. We reached Park Gates, about a mile from Buxton, after a journey of about twenty miles, in six hours.

Not long after my journey, a traveller on this line was killed, and the Company decided to close it against passenger traffic.”

(From ‘Our Iron Roads’ by Frederick S.. Williams, Third Edition, 1883), who quotes in the preface to his book:-

“Now, lads, you will live to see the day when mail coaches will go by railway, and it will be cheaper for a working man to travel on a railway than to walk on foot.” – George Stephenson.

“Railways have rendered more services, and received less gratitude, than any other institution in the land.” – John Bright MP, President of the Board of Trade: 1811-1889.