Former railway signs renovated in Peak District

Volunteers have so far cleaned and painted three gradient boards

A series of former railway line signs in the Peak District have been renovated by volunteers.

Concrete gradient boards, mileage markers and a signal post along the Tissington and High Peak trails have been cleaned and painted.

The Derbyshire trails closed as railways in the late 1960s before becoming public bridleways, and volunteers have since found these signs down embankments.

David Watts, from the Peak District National Park Authority, said the signs were a nice reminder they were once railways.

The boards tell the train driver the gradient of the land, said Mr Watts

The senior trails ranger, who was leading the renovations, said: "Gradient boards exist on our railway lines at the point where the gradient changes.

"It has an angle, which tells the train driver if it's going up or down, and says what that gradient is."

As an example, "1 in 300" means it was rising 1ft in 300ft, he explained.

"We have a series of those which, when the railway finished in the late 60s, a lot of them were just thrown down the embankments," he said.

Volunteers have been restoring mileage markers, unfortunately this one was missing its numbers, said Mr Watts

Mr Watts said in the last two weeks, they had renovated three gradient boards, the same number of mileage markers, and one signal post.

He added they had two more gradient boards to do.

Mr Watts said they had been placing them back near to where they were found.

He added: "We just de-veg them - that means with scrubbing brushes, we take all the algae and moss off, and clean them back to the concrete finish.

"We re-paint them in the original colours, which is white with lettering and numbers in black."

One signal post, on the High Peak trail, has been revamped

He said they were also tidying up the areas around the signs "so people can admire them".

Mr Watts said one of the gradient boards was at Biggin Road Bridge, another could be found a quarter of a mile north of there towards Hartington, with a mileage marker between the two.

Mr Watts said: "I personally do like the nostalgia of railways.

"There is something nice about the fact these trails were something else.

"They have been re-invented."

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