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摘要

In the 1890s the Chesterfield Canal gained an unwelcome new neighbour. The expansionist Manchester, Sheffie! & Lincolnshire Railway (which alread; owned the canal) built new lines which followed the western end of the canal between Chesterfield, Staveley, Renishaw and Killamarsh. This was the first stage of; major work programme that would, a few years later, see the railway extend its new line right down to London as the last great main line of the railway era, and rename itself to the Great Central. It didn't kill the canal off immediately -indeed, several new canal diversions were built which cut off old loops of the original James Brindley route, to make it easier to build the railway - but its arrival steepened the decline in the canal's fortunes. When the great canal tunnel at Norwood suffered the next in a series of collapses due to mining subsidence a few years later, there was no attempt made to reopen it and the canal west of Worksop was dead.