A 9F hauls a freight train across the Headstone Viaduct towards Millers Dale on the Peaks and Dales line in October 1963.Image courtesy of Colin Boocock, C.Eng., F.I.Mech.E.

A 9F hauls a freight train across the Headstone Viaduct towards Millers Dale on the Peaks and Dales line in October 1963.

Image courtesy of Colin Boocock, C.Eng., F.I.Mech.E.

 

Peaks and Dales Railway
Invited to Meet with Department for Transport and Restoring Your Railway Team

23rd May 2020

The Rail Minister, Chris Heaton-Harris MP has written to our Sponsoring and Supporting MPs saying that “we are ready to work with you on how best to take this project to the next stage”.

Peaks and Dales Railway, supported by MEMRAP, Manchester and East Midlands Rail Action Partnership, has accepted an invitation to meet the Department for Transport in June “to discuss the next steps with officials”. Interest in our proposal had previously been confirmed in a parliamentary written response on 29th April 2020 to Olivia Blake MP (Sheffield Hallam) that reinstatement of the Peaks and Dales line is “currently under consideration by the Panel of ministerial, local authority and rail industry representatives” - as part of the £500m government programme to bring forward proposals to reverse the worst of the disastrous Beeching-era railway cuts.

Peaks and Dales Railway, working with and supported by MEMRAP, proposes to reinstate the Peaks and Dales line, as a full double-track mainline mixed-traffic railway once again. The project would re-connect isolated and left-behind communities across Derbyshire. More widely, this important railway, which saw its last local passenger train in March 1967, would link the Peak District National Park - which receives c.10m visitors each year - with both Manchester and the East Midlands and their combined populations of c.7m people.

Crucially, these proposals are formally sponsored by local MPs Robert Largan and Nigel Mills, and are supported by Lilian Greenwood MP and Jane Hunt MP. Funding has been sought under the government’s ‘Restoring Your Railway’ scheme for the development of the formal Strategic Outline Business Case. This would accelerate the development and delivery of this project which would help level-up transport provision in the Manchester - East Midlands corridor to standards already enjoyed in the South East – and, as the Prime Minster has insisted, more widely, to do so as quickly as possible.

Please click here for more information

Please check out MEMRAP’s new website and why not support the campaign to reinstate the Peaks and Dales line by becoming a member of MEMRAP?

You can be the first to hear updates on our progress by subscribing to our Newsletter.  You can also follow us on Twitter: @PeaksDalesRail and remember to include #GetPeaksAndDalesRailwayDone in your tweets!

If you haven’t already, please also sign the petition calling for the reinstatement of the Peaks and Dales line!