Hindlow - Introduction

The second layout has recently been started to fulfill the prime objective of our Society of educating the public in railways and model railways.

Some members who had not been involved in the construction of the first layout from the beginning expressed an interest in constructing a smaller layout from scratch with a view to producing a working layout for exhibition. Unlike the first this will be based on a real location in Derbyshire to portray a railway built to serve both a local community and two traditional Derbyshire industries, quarrying limestone and the production of lime.

In depth research has been taking place to ensure that the layout will be as realistic a representation as possible of the station at Hindlow and its surroundings. Sources of information have included local libraries, the London and North Western Railway Society, retired British Railways staff and site visits to photograph the infrastructure remaining on site.

A copy of the original LNWR Civil Engineer’s 1893 linen drawing of the line at Hindlow, updated to show alterations, has been obtained, to ensure that the track layout is faithfully reproduced. In fact it changed little between 1893 and 1960, which will enable various periods to be portrayed.

The actual traffic carried by the railway needs to be faithfully portrayed. We have acquired working timetables for various years and the locomotive allocations at both the Buxton and the Stoke motive power depots that worked the line. Photographs dating back to the last years of the 19th century show the type of locomotives used and the traffic carried including limestone products, livestock, milk, munitions for the MOD depot at Harpur Hill, silica bricks from Friden, chicken grit from Longcliffe and both local and through passenger traffic.

A visit to the present operators of the site produced a series of photographs of the works when it belonged to Beswicks from the 1920s to the 1960s and these should enable a realistic representation of the battery of limekilns adjacent to the tunnel mouth.

This has been a fascinating exercise and still continues.

The layout will be about 9 metres long with fiddle yards at both ends. The area to be modeled will include the station and yard from the tunnel mouth as far as the junction with the Ladmanlow branch, which joined the line with the route of Cromford and High Peak Railway to Whaley Bridge. The bank of four lime kilns by the tunnel will also be included with a representation of the exchange sidings.

So far the baseboards and track have been fabricated.

LMS Class 4F No. 44508 testing in Hindlow Yard. May 1962. Photo J M Bentley

Beswicks lime works at Hindlow 25th April 1953. Photo: H Townley


Hudswell Clark Diesel Mechanical locomotive no. 577 "Mary" delivered new to Beswicks Limeworks in 1932. She joined a similar loco , HC DM no 559 "Lizzie" of 1930. Mary is shunting lime wagons in pre-1948 livery in front of a bank of coal fired lime kilns that have long since been dismantled. These "Spencer" kilns were once a common sight in limestone districts. Mary is preserved in working order on the Middleton Railway at Leeds.

This photograph is reproduced by kind permission of Lhoist UK who now operate a clean and energy efficient natural gas fired plant at Hindlow to produce high purity lime, an essential raw material for a range of products. Today lime and its derivatives are used in a broad spectrum of applications which have a major impact on our daily lives, such as: Acid neutralisation, Agriculture, Construction, Effluent Treatment, Foodstuffs, Flue Gas Treatment, Paint, Petrochemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Plastics, Salt, Soil Treatment, Waste Water Treatment, Sugar, DrinkingWater, Glass and Paper, Winemaking, Leather Tanning and Iron and Steel Industry