Old Railway from Ripley to Derby (Ripley Branch Part 1). January 2024

*IMPORTANT UPDATE (October 2025)*

The section of the Ripley Branch railway route between Rawson Green and Duffield Rd, which is covered in the other two videos of this trilogy, is currently being resurfaced as an all-weather public cycleway and footpath , and is scheduled to open for public use in early 2026.
It will be known as the Little Eaton Greenway and linked to the segment between Butterley and Ripley as featured on this instalment


Dave enjoys the advantages of a mild winter day for a three-part trip along an interesting former suburban railway route, running down the dales and vales of East Derbyshire.

The Ripley branch line once connected the small railways of Langley Mill and Erewash Valley to the Midland Main Line, north of Derby, running through Marehay, Denby Kilburn, Coxbench and Little Eaton en route.

A casualty of the Beeching Cuts (surprise surprise) it closed it's regular passenger runs in the 1950s after almost exactly a century of commutes, still operating as a goods, colliery and charter train branch as far north as Denby until the late 1990s.

In this first part Dave walks the section from Lowes Hill to Marehay on the southern outskirts of Ripley which is now used as a public footpath and bridleway.

Although a large amount of the cuttings around the town is now filled up to street level with only parapets left visible, there is still plenty of original stonework as evidence along with a couple of pleasantly welcome commemorative installations awaiting us alongside the more modernised phases of the trail. 


Just to be warned that there are a number of glitches and pixelations throughout the video - this is caused by limitations to the availability of technology and editing/  recording memory on the device used to produce a video at the time.

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#derby
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#Dave'sDeadLines
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#Butterley
#Marehay