Beighton Junction
[vague] The Midland Railway (MR) allowed MS&L trains to run south two stops beyond Beighton Junction to Eckington where passengers had to change for Chesterfield and beyond.
Some attempts were made to run through trains from the MS&L, notably to London, but these more often fell foul of railway politics than operating or financial difficulties.
The Midland's ire must be understood not in the trivial loss of transfer passenger traffic at Eckington, but in the consequent opening of the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire coalfield to railway competition.
In November 1890 detailed plans for this new line - to be known as the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (LD&ECR) - were made public, they included a branch from Langwith to Beighton, aiming at the expanding heavy industry in Sheffield.
"[11] So little opposition, and that from a partial source, meant the Bill sailed through Parliament and received Royal assent on 5 August 1891, the biggest line authorised in a single session.
Whatever scores may have been settled the GCR had certainly scotched the competitive threat posed by the LD&ECR and went on to make significant use of its metals, most notably as the Nottinghamshire Coalfield spread eastwards.
The lines which undertook the most preventive work were the Waleswood Curve and the LD&ECR, the former in particular diverted a horseshoe bend in the river to end up with just one crossing - Bedgreave Viaduct[20] - instead of many.
Its most famous traffic - Anston stone for the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament following a disastrous fire in 1834 - was transferred from narrowboats to seagoing craft and taken thereby to the Thames.
The MS&LR had a similar objective in building the Waleswood Curve, as well as the additional spur of meeting a clamour of traffic in the opposite direction - iron ore for Staveley Works.
The 1854 OS map shows the colliery and a tramway running southwards, seemingly to end at right angles to the MS&LR main line.
1877–92 OS maps show the developed position, with the tramroad from the colliery crossing the MS&LR at right angles to enter coal handling facilities immediately south thereof, on Midland metals.
When the company bought the mine the MS&LR's "Derbyshire Lines" were far into the future so the Midland Railway was the natural partner to transport the coal southwards, as they already served the ironworks on a large scale.
Trains from the ex-GCR east–west line reversed empty wagons under the hopper after which they were allowed to run forward under gravity whilst coal was dropped into them.
[35][36][37][38][39] The single track branch turned south west off the LD&ECR line approximately opposite Killamarsh North Junction.
[41][42] It turned east off the Midland's Old Road at Killamarsh Branch Junction, passed under a farm track then crossed what was initially open water meadows.
Metal sheets in a wagon being shunted became dislodged and protruded into the path of a troop train on the adjacent "Down" (northbound) ex-GCR main line.
[74][75][76] The Sheffield-Worksop line had two long-distance services, the Master Cutler from 1958 and for many years the daily Liverpool Central-Harwich Parkeston Quay boat train.
A notable variation on this routing was the Starlight Express sleeping car service from Marylebone to Glasgow St Enoch and Stirling which ran from 1962 to 1964 to free up the West Coast Main Line for electrification work.
Two further passenger flows passed southeastwards to and from the LD&ECR route at one of the Beighton Junctions: From 1988 into the early 1990s a preservation group named the "Rother Valley Railway" had a brief existence on the site of Upperthorpe & Killamarsh station.
The 1963 WTT shows the following flows north–south straight through the 1849 Beighton Junction: In 1965 a connecting spur was installed between the former Nunnery Colliery Branch and the ex-MS&LR Main Line a quarter of a mile east of Sheffield Victoria.
By 1905 Great Central express services were quicker from London to Sheffield[100] than the Midland, but at the expense of having to run five coach trains including a restaurant car.
Much enterprise was shown in the Edwardian period to attract customers to the new line, but in modern business parlance it lacked a unique selling point.
Further south, near Kirkby Bentinck, the line was severed almost immediately, with colour light signals still glowing red,[107] though traffic to Arkwright Colliery via Duckmanton Junction continued for some years.
The line's relative over-capacity, its long-distance connections and its access to Wembley Stadium made special traffic to hockey, football and Rugby League matches significant business, especially after World War II.
[117] This latter disappeared when the main line closed, leaving coal, plus small amounts of residual traffic such as the Saturdays Only Wadsley Bridge Batchelors canning factory to Oddicroft Metal Box factory at Sutton-in-Ashfield[118] which ran along the Beighton Branch then the Leen Valley Extension until the former closed as a through route, whereafter it ran via Shireoaks, Whitwell the new MR-LD&ECR spur south of Creswell, through the site of Shirebrook North then onto the Leen Valley extension right up to the latter's closure on 27 May 1968.
This was followed in the 1960s by larger new power stations in the Trent Valley whose demand for coal necessitated new technology, which was provided in notable forms such as "TOPS"[120] and computer timetabled[121] Merry-go-round trains (mgr).
This enabled coal from pits such as Warsop to travel along the first, easily graded couple of miles of the Beighton Branch then switch east to the ex-MR line and head for Worksop.
In 1972 Peter Hogarth wrote "the 'old road' carries a still considerable volume of freight traffic, running for most of its length through a barren and malodorous wasteland of chemical plants, coking ovens and steel works.
Up to the early 1960s the dominant traffic along the Old Road through Beighton Junction was coal and iron ore carried on slow, steam-hauled, loose-coupled trains with corresponding "empties" in the opposite direction.
A little-sung use of the Old Road, usually passing straight through Beighton Junction 1849 was for running in and acceptance trials for stock, especially those built or renovated at Derby or Doncaster.
