by JG Morgan » Fri Mar 23, 2018 8:56 pm
I have had a look at Gough ...
I've read the Foreword, Introduction and Conventions text at the front and have checked the detailed descriptions of the Hitchin to Bedford line and the Derby / Nottingham / Leicester triangle, and can find nothing about a change of direction in 1907 or that it was ever "up to Derby" throughout the Midland Railway.
I can see no mention of a "wholesale re-mileposting" in 1907.
It is, of course, up to Derby on the Bristol line as others have stated earlier; that matches the milepost direction (zero at London Road junction Derby). As far as the MR was concerned, Bristol - Birmingham - Derby is the route to London from the south-west (therefore "Up" in the normal railway sense). The MR might have "cut off the corner" from Stenson to Trent, but would not have wanted to send London traffic via the rival GWR or LNWR.
Trains to London would have left Derby south-westwards (to Hampton in Arden) from August 1839.
From June 1840 a route to London became available leaving Derby station at the north end, turning east to Chaddesden, Sawley Jct, Leicester and Rugby. So trains to London could have left from either end of the station. The route south then east from Derby station (the Litchurch & Spondon curve, the main line as we know it now) did not open until June 1867. Thereafter trains to London St Pancras could leave at either end of Derby station until closure to passenger trains of the old route via Chaddesden in October 1968.