Ollerton railway station

Ollerton
General information
LocationOllerton, Newark and Sherwood
England
Coordinates53°11′39″N 1°01′45″W / 53.1943°N 1.0291°W / 53.1943; -1.0291
Grid referenceSK 649 667
Platforms2
Other information
StatusDisused
History
Original companyLD&ECR
Pre-groupingGreat Central Railway
Post-groupingLNER
British Railways
Key dates
15 December 1896Opened
19 September 1955scheduled services ended
6 September 1964excursions end, station closed
6 July 1991reopened
8 July 1991Closed[1]
LD&ECR and Sheffield District Railway
1950 Excursion Advert

Ollerton railway station is a former railway station in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire, England.

History

The station was opened by the LD&ECR in 1896 and closed to local passenger traffic in 1955, though Summer holiday excursions to and from the East Coast continued to call until September 1964.[2][3]

The station,[4][5] goods shed[6] and signalbox[7] were built to standard LD&ECR patterns. Large water tanks were erected at both ends of the site.[8][9][10][11]

Former services

Two services called at Ollerton in 1922, but not on Sundays.

Three trains per day ran between Chesterfield Market Place and Lincoln with a market day extra on Fridays between Langwith Junction and Lincoln. These called at all stations.[12] The truncated remains of this service ended in September 1955.[8]

Three trains per day terminated at Ollerton from Nottingham Victoria via Mansfield Central then went back again half an hour or so later.[13] This service was later cut back to Edwinstowe.[14] A fourth train ran to Nottingham Victoria Monday to Friday, but on Saturdays it started from Lincoln and ran through to Leicester Central.[15] This service did not survive the Second World War.

Summer Saturday holiday trains survived until 1964.[16][17]

Royal trains

As a marketing device the LD&ECR called itself "The Dukeries Route" because the line passed through an area of great landed estates. This led to visits to the area by Queen Victoria's son Edward, first as Prince of Wales and later as King Edward VII, usually in connection with a race meeting such as the St Leger. The Royal Train used Ollerton station[18] from which the Royal Party went to a ducal residence by road.[19][20]

Coal

A branch was built to serve Ollerton Colliery which opened in 1926.[21] This branch has now been severed from the "Main Line".[22] In the mid-twentieth century, the LMS and LNER jointly proposed a coal line to be called the Mid-Notts Joint Railway from Bestwood Park Junction, near Nottingham to Checker House Junction on the former GCR line near Retford. Only the section between Ollerton and Farnsfield was built.[23] The southern section to Bestwood Park was completed in the 1950s to serve the new Calverton Colliery.[24]

Further eastwards the line climbed at around 1-in-150 towards Boughton as it crossed a ridge before the valley of the River Trent.[25]

Modern times

The line through Ollerton Station was reopened to non-passenger traffic in August 2009 as the High Marnham Test Track. The line is used by Network Rail to test new engineering trains and on-track plant.

The new test line runs from Thoresby Colliery Junction to the site of the partially demolished High Marnham Power Station, and passes former station sites of Ollerton, Boughton, Tuxford Central and Dukeries Junction, all these stations were closed by 1955.[26]

The platforms remained in place in Spring 2018, 54 years after closure.[27]

The future

There have been hypothetical suggestions of reopening the line as a branch off the Robin Hood Line and reopening Warsop, Edwinstowe and Ollerton stations, providing an hourly service to Mansfield and Nottingham.[28][29][30]

Former Services
Preceding station   Disused railways   Following station
Edwinstowe
Line and station closed 		  Great Central Railway
Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway 		  Boughton
Line and station closed

References

  1. ^ Butt 1995, p. 178.
  2. ^ Walker 1991, Inside front cover.
  3. ^ Waller 2004, p. 38.
  4. ^ Kaye 1988, p. 72.
  5. ^ Dow 1965, p. 166.
  6. ^ Collinson 2010a, p. 21.
  7. ^ Ollerton station :via PictureThePast
  8. ^ a b Anderson & Cupit 2000, p. 53.
  9. ^ Garratt & Priestley 1996, p. 7.
  10. ^ Anderson 2013, p. 340.
  11. ^ Stephen 2018, p. 52.
  12. ^ Bradshaw 1985, p. 718.
  13. ^ Bradshaw 1985, p. 701.
  14. ^ Cupit 1956, p. 61.
  15. ^ Bradshaw 1985, p. 696.
  16. ^ 1964 Working Timetable (Up): via flickr
  17. ^ 1964 Working Timetable (Down): via flickr
  18. ^ Gilks 2002, p. 205.
  19. ^ Cupit & Taylor 1984, pp. 36–8.
  20. ^ Booth 2013, p. 33.
  21. ^ DVD2 2005, film, 49-55 mins from start.
  22. ^ Collinson 2010b, p. 33.
  23. ^ Booth 2013, p. 38.
  24. ^ Cupit & Taylor 1984, p. 19.
  25. ^ NoAuthor 2011, p. 16.
  26. ^ "Preparing for the Future: Network Rail Opens Vehicle Development Centre". Press Releases (Press release). Network Rail. 10 July 2009. Retrieved 31 August 2012.[permanent dead link]
  27. ^ Stephen 2018, p. 53.
  28. ^ Lambourne, Helen (22 July 2009). "New bid to extend rail link to Ollerton". Worksop Today. Retrieved 21 February 2010.
  29. ^ "Town's history of rail". Chad, 26 February, 2014, pp.18-19. Accessed 9 March, 2023
  30. ^ Stephen 2018, pp. 48–53.

Sources

Further reading

  • Ludlam, A.J. (March 2013). Kennedy, Rex (ed.). "The Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway". Steam Days. 283. Bournemouth: Redgauntlet 1993 Publications. ISSN 0269-0020.