When the civil engineer William Jessop and his associate Benjamin Outram finished building the Cromford Canal. While they were linking the expanding industries of the Derwent Valley to the Midlands, it was soon realised that if the canal was continued in a northerly direction, it would open the burgeoning new cotton industry to markets around and beyond the Trent Valley, and vice versa for mutual growth. The original idea of continuing the canal across the limestone moors and linking with the Peak Forest Canal at Whalley Bridge, was soon dropped for the simple reason that the linking canal north from Cromford would have to climb almost 1000 feet across the comparatively waterless limestone uplands of the White Peak. Even then the canal mentality still held sway and following an Act of Parliament dated 2nd May 1825, permission was granted to build a 33mile long railway, still following the canal pattern, costing an estimated £32,880, one of the earliest railways built soon after the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Permission to build what became known as the Cromford and High Peak Railway, was awarded to Josias Jessop, the second son of William Jessop, the canal engineer responsible for the design and building of the Cromford Canal. As Josias Jessop had been trained in canal engineering, it is hardly surprising that his railway was designed as though it was a dry canal. Rather than go round or underneath hills, the route climbed on steep gradients, with trains hauled up and down by cables powered by stationary steam engines. Still thinking in canal terminology, stations were called wharfs and the inclines took the place of canal locks. There are several sharp bends such as the one at Gotham where the track turns through ninety degrees in less than a hundred yards....
