Peak Rail And Nr Agree Matlock Link

摘要

After many years of waiting, Peak Rail received the Christmas present it wanted on December 24 when Network Rail formally offered a 50-year lease enabling trains to run into Matlock station. The station's disused down platform has been offered to PR for a peppercorn rent. NR has also confirmed its agreement for the heritage line to access main line metals at Matlock Riverside, meaning that PR can share the station with main line trains. Peak Rail will receive a ￡25,000 grant from Derbyshire County Council to assist with refurbishment of the overgrown platform, which has been disused since the 1970s. Sainsbury's, which built a superstore on the site of nearby Cawdor quarry (ironically resulting in the lifting of the original NR link in 2007 to gain access) will finance a ramp enabling access to the platform, the footbridge having been removed long ago. Part of the agreement is that Peak Rail must provide passenger waiting facilities, although these will initially be in fairly basic form. In a departure from normal practice, NR says it will allow Peak Rail volunteers to slew the tracks at Riverside, enabling reconnection of the heritage line to the end of the NR-owned loop line, thus producing what amounts to a three quarter mile extension of Peak Rail plus a link to the national network. When running round trains. Peak Rail locomotives will be on NR metals when using the loop. The first trains are likely to run during 2010.