What better way to spend a few hours on a nice sunny day than down underground in a culvert.
This is the second culvert I have found under the Churnet valley railway Waterhouses branch line. This one is shorter in length but alot taller and wider than the previous one. Constructed of stone walls, brick arch and a brick base it carries an UN names stream under the railway. Another smaller culvert joins this culvert partway down and is just about big enough to crawl through. All in all it was a nice peaceful wander with the sounds of trickling water and the chirping of swallows who were nesting inside the culvert.
I couldn't find any history at all on the culvert itself but here is a little bit of history on the Waterhouse branch line.
The Waterhouses branch line was a railway built by the North Staffordshire Railway to link the small villages east of Leek, Staffordshire with Leek, the biggest market town in the area. The railway opened in 1905 but closed to passengers in 1935. Freight continued on the line though until 1988, when the line was mothballed as the traffic from the quarries at Caldon Low ceased.
The NSR operated Caldon Low quarry under a 999-year lease and exported limestone from the quarry via a 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge railway from the quarry to the NSR station at Kingsley and Froghall and as the quarry expanded this was not the most efficient method of moving the stone.
The transport of limestone mineral traffic from Caldon Low quarries was the main interest of the NSR in constructing the line as the company were the leaseholders of this quarry. Daily services ran from the earliest days and reached a peak of 4 trains per day in 1927, but the economic depression of the 1930s affected the fortunes of Caldon Low quarry and the traffic had dropped to only one train per day in 1940. After the end of the Second World War there was an increase in traffic and limestone continued to be moved by train from Caldon Low until 1988.
Ok, so in we go
The infall
Looking back out of the infall, the temperature inside was nice and cool
A smaller stone and brick culvert joins here
Looking out of the outfall
The infall for the smaller culvert
And I bit of light painting.
This is the second culvert I have found under the Churnet valley railway Waterhouses branch line. This one is shorter in length but alot taller and wider than the previous one. Constructed of stone walls, brick arch and a brick base it carries an UN names stream under the railway. Another smaller culvert joins this culvert partway down and is just about big enough to crawl through. All in all it was a nice peaceful wander with the sounds of trickling water and the chirping of swallows who were nesting inside the culvert.
I couldn't find any history at all on the culvert itself but here is a little bit of history on the Waterhouse branch line.
The Waterhouses branch line was a railway built by the North Staffordshire Railway to link the small villages east of Leek, Staffordshire with Leek, the biggest market town in the area. The railway opened in 1905 but closed to passengers in 1935. Freight continued on the line though until 1988, when the line was mothballed as the traffic from the quarries at Caldon Low ceased.
The NSR operated Caldon Low quarry under a 999-year lease and exported limestone from the quarry via a 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge railway from the quarry to the NSR station at Kingsley and Froghall and as the quarry expanded this was not the most efficient method of moving the stone.
The transport of limestone mineral traffic from Caldon Low quarries was the main interest of the NSR in constructing the line as the company were the leaseholders of this quarry. Daily services ran from the earliest days and reached a peak of 4 trains per day in 1927, but the economic depression of the 1930s affected the fortunes of Caldon Low quarry and the traffic had dropped to only one train per day in 1940. After the end of the Second World War there was an increase in traffic and limestone continued to be moved by train from Caldon Low until 1988.
Ok, so in we go
The infall
Looking back out of the infall, the temperature inside was nice and cool
A smaller stone and brick culvert joins here
Looking out of the outfall
The infall for the smaller culvert
And I bit of light painting.
