authorities and landowners for the reservoir. The Bill was defeated in Parliament, after which the Peak Forest Canal Company proposed to build a branch of their canal from Marple to Leek, and on to join the Caldon branch. It would also have included a reservoir at Rudyard, but the plan was short-lived, as the Trent and Mersey succeeded in getting their bill passed when they submitted it to Parliament for a second time in 1797. To ensure that the water from Rudyard could be used to supply the main line, the Leek branch had to join the top level of the Caldon branch, and so the original route with the three Park Lane locks was closed and a new route built, with a three-lock staircase between the junction and the old line of the canal. This was altered again in 1841 to the present arrangement, where the canal to Froghall passes under an aqueduct on the Leek branch, and three separate locks at Hollinhurst raise the old line up to the summit level. With the coming of the railways, the Trent and Mersey Company canals were sold to the North Staffordshire Railway, with the formal takeover occurring on 15 January 1845. They were keen to promote the canals and railways as mutual feeders, and so maintained the canals, with the exception of the Uttoxeter branch, which was closed by an Act of Parliament obtained in July 1847, so that the Churnet Valley Railway could be built along its course. The tramway from Froghall to Cauldon Quarries was replaced by a new cable-operated railway in 1849. It included inclined planes at Froghall, Oldridge and Cotton, and was built to a gauge of . Trains consisted of up to nine waggons, each capable of holding 6 tons of limestone, and around 1,000 tons a day were moved from the quarries to the canal. Traffic gradually moved away from the canal to the railways. In 1904, Endon basin was built, where limestone brought from the quarries by the railway could be transferred to boats. One of the major users of the limestone, based at Sandbach, closed in 1920, and the cable railway to Froghall closed in the same year. Limestone was no longer transhipped at Endon from 1930, and the canal saw virtually no traffic. Responsibility for the canal passed to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1940, who closed the Leek