Vic Mitchell (1)

An album in the Middleton Press series of Country Railway Routes. This book has the advantage over other titles on the Cromford & High Peak in that it has photographs, especially of the upper section, that have been previously little seen in print. It is also well illustrated with detailed maps and covers some of the industrial sidings and locomotives that fed the line. It also refers historically to the line's conversion to a long-distance foot and cycle path. For these reasons alone, the book is noteworthy.

But there are severe issues with the captions. These range from the helpful to the banal and the inaccurate. Some of them make no sense whatsoever. In a number of them, it becomes clear that the writer(s) do not have any idea what they are actually looking at. Some captions are just plain wrong, such as that for map X which says that the map "...does not include the Hopton goods loop..." when it plainly does. The caption to picture 65, showing a train on the High Peak plateau going around a sharp curve, refers to the curve's "considerable superelevation", when there is no superelevation visible (nor would any be necessary on a line where train speeds would be unlikely to exceed 30 mph). In this case, the word "superelevation" does not mean what the writer thinks it means; the term refers to the raising of one rail higher than the other on curves to allow for greater stability at high speeds on curves. It does not mean "excessive height above sea level".

In picture 84, a quarry grading machine is referred to as "equipment for loading the tipper wagons". And picture 95's caption explains in words of one syllable the term "wicket gate" in relation to level crossings, a term that surely no purchaser of a specialist book of railway photographs will need explaining to them.

Perhaps the worst instance is photograph 91 in the section referring to Harpur Hill. This was the location of an RAF ammunition dump during World War 2, but no mention of this is made anywhere in the book (and the provided map dates from 1939). Photograph 91 shows a narrow gauge locomotive with a train of munitions, but we are not told why it is in the book at all. In fact, the locomotive is shown at RAF Fauld, near Tutbury, location of a disastrous explosion in November 1944; and the ammunition dump at Harpur Hill, whilst having a narrow gauge line on site, was itself only served by standard-gauge sidings. Anyone not familiar with the story of ammunition logistics in World War 2 would have no context for this photograph at all.

The book is nonetheless useful for the photographs, but caveat lector has to be the order of the day. Anyone seriously interested in this railway should seek out Alan Rimmer's 1967 book on the subject in the Oakwood Press Locomotion Papers series, which was revised and reprinted as recently as 1995.… (meer)