Belper railway station serves the town of Belper in Derbyshire, England. The station is located on the Midland Main Line from to via , a little under north of Derby. History The line was surveyed by George Stephenson for the North Midland Railway Company, and opened in 1840. The Strutt family who had built cotton mills and had become the primary landowner, were great supporters of the line and had invested in it. They feared, however, that it would interfere with the water supply to the mill and affect both theirs and their employees' livelihood, so initially suggested in 1835 that the line should proceed by Holbrook. This proved unsatisfactory and, in the 1836 Act authorising the line, the proposed route took it to the east of the Derwent through Milford then to the west past Belper. This "Milford Deviation" was still not acceptable, so a revised Act was approved in 1837. This entailed the building of Milford Tunnel and the excavation of a long cutting, at enormous (and unexpected) expense, with eleven bridges in the space of a mile. The cutting, lined with gritstone, is now a grade 2 listed building. North of Belper, the engineers paid the penalty of following a river valley, with two long bridges over Belper Pool, plus two more, before reaching Ambergate. The original station was built on the south side of Belper, just before the cutting, designed by Francis Thompson in an Italianate design. A coach, or omnibus, ran regularly to it from the Lion Hotel in Bridge Street. However this proved so unpopular that the Midland Railway built a new station in 1878 within the cutting, at the town centre, next to King Street. This had platforms with access ramps for each of the two lines, both provided with waiting rooms, in the standard Midland Railway design. The booking office and other facilities were at street level. Since the new station lacked sidings, the old station remained in use for many years for the processing of goods traffic. Originally the station was a stop on the Midland Railway's main line from London St Pancras to Manchester Central which travelled through the Peak District. When this line was truncated to its present terminus at Matlock in the late 'sixties and following withdrawal of the Manchester trains, the station became unmanned and in 1973 the station buildings were demolished. The bridge carrying King Street