Shirebrook North Railway Station - History

History

The station was opened by the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (later part of the Great Central Railway and subsequently the LNER) in March 1897 and was closed to regular passenger traffic by British Railways in September 1955.

The station was originally called Langwith Junction, and gave this name to the adjacent steam locomotive shed and the settlement that grew up around it, although the station was renamed as "Shirebrook North" on 2 June 1924, despite not being in Shirebrook. It was located on the LD&ECR line between Chesterfield Market Place and Lincoln Central. A branch ran north-west via Clowne to meet the Midland Railway at Beighton, on the outskirts of Sheffield, originally with the aim of running on the MS&LR - later Great Central - line into Sheffield Victoria. That company rejected the idea and, for a time, it led to a goods depot at Beighton, until it was linked with the Sheffield District Railway in 1900. giving access to The Midland Railway station at Sheffield. The line to Sheffield was occasionally called "The Sheffield Branch" but far more commonly "The Beighton Branch."

The station had four platforms and was one of the three with a refreshment room, the others being Chesterfield Market Place and Edwinstowe. The signalmen would warn passengers of the arrival of a train by ringing a bell. The main station building was in the line's standard modular style.

In November 1901 the Great Northern Railway's "Leen Valley Extension" line arrived from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Pleasley and its own Shirebrook station, later known as Shirebrook South. The LD&ECR had plans for its own branch to Mansfield but gave them up and built a curve into the Midland Railway line from Nottingham to Worksop. Thus, at its zenith, Shirebrook North served five routes:

• West to Chesterfield Market Place, first stop Scarcliffe
• North West to Sheffield, first stop Creswell and Welbeck
• East to Lincoln Central, first stop Warsop
• South East to Mansfield (ex-MR), first stop Shirebrook (later renamed Shirebrook West) and
• SSE to Nottingham Victoria, first stop Shirebrook (later renamed Shirebrook South.)

Five routes, an engine shed, a wagon works, a goods shed and sidings led to complex trackwork to be controlled by Langwith Junction signalbox which stood in the "V" of the original junction of the Chesterfield and Beighton lines.

Shirebrook North was closed to regular passenger traffic in stages.

First to go was SSE via Shirebrook (South) in 1931, though timetabled Summer weekend services and excursions continued until 1964. The line was closed completely on 27 May 1968. The running lines near Shirebrook North were adopted as sidings of the wagon works.

Next was NW via Creswell and Welbeck and Clowne (South) on 10 September 1939, though timetabled Summer weekend services, excursions and diversions continued until 1964. The line heading North from Shirebrook was finally closed in 1974. South from its northernmost end, Beighton Junction to the northern portal of Spinkhill tunnel, a distance of 3 miles, remained open until Westthorpe Colliery, Killamarsh closed in 1984.

Services SE to Mansfield Midland also ended on 10 September 1939. The curves joining the LD&EC lines east of Shirebrook North to the Midland's Worksop-Nottingham line were lifted between 1946 and 1950. Remarkably, the South to West curve was reinstated in November 1974 to serve Davis's Wagon Works, which it still does. This was because of the blasting of a single line cutting between the former Midland coming from the north. This cutting sloped up to the East-bound former LD&ECR, enabling the closure of the Sheffield branch which had been performing this function. The South to West curve referred to above (which was originally the inside leg of a flyover junction with the Midland facing Mansfield) has an interesting syphon which appears to have been preceded by a launder going over.

Services west to Chesterfield Market Place ended on 3 December 1951. The sparse traffic made the £1M (1951 prices) cost of repairing Bolsover Tunnel, plus uncosted concerns over the Doe Lea Viaduct west of Bolsover South hopelessly uneconomic. Track between Markham Junction (between Bolsover and Arkwright Town) and a few hundred yards west of Shirebrook North was lifted immediately. The remaining yards of track west of Shirebrook North were used as a headshunt and a wagon store for several years.

The remaining Monday to Saturday service ran between Shirebrook North and Lincoln Central, serving a sparse population between. Inevitably it succumbed; ending on 17 September 1955. Extra carriages were provided for the last day service, but few people turned up. The lines eastwards were rationalised over the years and Shirebrook North was subsequently cut off in 1974, but they still serve a remnant of Britain's deep-mined coal industry and have been chosen for Network Rail's High Marnham Test Track which includes a short electrified section.

September 1955 left Shirebrook North providing three services and witnessing two others.

1. Goods were handled up to 4 January 1965.

2. Excursions called until 5 September 1964, notably to East Coast resorts and to football matches.

3. Timetabled Summer weekend services also survived or passed until 5 September 1964:

• NW via Clowne South to Blackpool
• NE via the Tuxford West to North curve and Retford to the Yorkshire Coast
• East via Lincoln to the Lincolnshire Coast and to Yarmouth Vauxhall and
• SSE to Nottingham Victoria to connect with holiday expresses to many points South and West.

The Yorkshire coast service provided a minor "last", in that the final, timetabled, steam-hauled train south from Retford was not an "A3" for Kings Cross, but was hauled by Black 5 45444 via Tuxford, the LD&EC and Mansfield Central, with a connection from Ollerton calling at Shirebrook North.

4. The route from Lincoln through Shirebrook North and Clowne South served as a diversionary route. Notably, this led to the occasional appearance of March "Britannia" 4-6-2s on the Liverpool Central-Harwich Parkeston Quay Boat Train (known locally as "The Boaty") trundling through Warsop and Shirebrook North in the early 1960s.

5. GC main line trains were also occasionally diverted or routed via Shirebrook North, travelling from Nottingham Victoria via the Leen Valley, through Shirebrook South, Shirebrook North and Clowne South, regaining the GC Main Line at Killamarsh.

Passenger traffic was very small beer compared with the massive mineral traffic, in which coal was head and shoulders above the rest.

Langwith Junction and Halwill Junction on the Devon/Cornwall border are the only two place names (as opposed to station names) in Britain including the word "Junction."

The Shirebrook railway station used today is on the Robin Hood Line, which is the modern branding of the Midland Railway's Nottingham to Worksop route. It closed in 1964 as Shirebrook West and reopened in 1998.

This complex history of openings, closings and renamings is most clearly rendered by the superb map in Lawson Little's "Langwith Junction, the life and times of a railway village."