The line was forked: it reached Pinxton in 1875 and a junction with the North Staffordshire Railway at Egginton, approaching Burton on Trent in 1878.

The Ambergate company had been conceived to connect the manufacturing districts of Manchester and Lancashire with the Eastern Counties and Boston docks, but the ambitious scheme never achieved the funding it would need, and it was cut back.

The Midland Railway went to great lengths to be obstructive to the GNR use of its line, in order to protect its near-monopoly.

[3] Conveying coal from northern coalfields to London to the southern counties was a huge operation, bringing in very considerable income.

[4][5][3] Finding this oppressive, the GNR tried in 1862 to get a line from Colwick to Codnor Park, where there was a huge ironworks, already long established, coupled with coal and iron mines dominated by the Butterley Company.

The line would have extended directly westward from the GNR terminus at Nottingham (London Road) through Lenton and Radford.

Shortly a ruinous rates war followed, and on 2 April 1871 the GNR was barred from running its coal trains through the Midland lines at all.

[6] Faced with a massive loss of income, the GNR was spurred to making its own line into the Derbyshire coalfield.

This westward connection would enable a route for outward mineral flows as an alternative to running through Colwick.

The planned route involved prodigious engineering challenges and steep gradients, as more convenient alignments were already occupied by the Midland Railway.

[9] The project was authorised on 25 July 1872 by the Great Northern Railway (Derbyshire and Staffordshire) Act 1872 (35 & 36 Vict.

c. cxxxix);[10][8] in addition to the main goods depot off Friar Gate, a subsidiary yard was planned in Duke Street, giving access to a centre of industrial activity there.

This was authorised in 1874, and involved a northward spur running down from the main line at Darley Lane Junction, some way north east from Friargate, to a shunting neck on the riverside.

There was a tunnel 1,132 yards long at Mapperley, and Giltbrook Viaduct, 60 feet high with 43 arches crossing the Midland Railway west of Kimberley, a viaduct crossing another Midland branch at Bulwell, and Watnall tunnel, 268 yards, east of Kimberley.

The great rock cutting at Kimberley was still not completed when passenger trains began, and there was only a single track for a distance of 1+1⁄4 miles.

[12] The company gave an undertaking to the Board of Trade inspecting officer that passenger trains would be worked by tank engines; this avoided the necessity of providing a turntable.

It strides for a quarter of a mile across the flat floor of the Erewash valley on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border, having 16 Warren girder spans of 77 feet mounted on tubular piers.

The piers each comprise a group of 10 vertical wrought iron tubes, made up of quadrants with continuous longitudinal riveted flanges, with an additional raking tube at each side and with wrought-iron bolted cross-bracing, standing on concrete bases capped with bricks and gritstone.

The GNR Chief Engineer at the time was Richard Johnson and the contractors Eastwood Swingler & Co. of Derby.

[14]On 24 January 1878 the GNR ran a special train throughout from Grantham to Egginton, distributing station equipment in readiness for opening.

The NSR gave running powers to the GNR between Egginton Junction and Bromshall Junction, and also on to Stoke-on-Trent, and the NSR was granted running powers to Nottingham and Pinxton, which it exercised for coal traffic to Colwick, and excursions and other specials to Nottingham.

However the construction had already greatly overrun cost estimates, and the architectural features of the station were toned down to save money.

[18] The GNR's hopes that "a new route from Derby to London" would bring in significant volumes of passenger business were illusory.

The excess was mainly accounted for by the colliery branches and sidings; the station, sidings, engine shed and other facilities at Colwick; the engine sheds at Pinxton, Egginton, Gedling and Newthorpe stations; cottages for staff; alterations to bridges as required by the Board of Trade; the additional length of the Ilkeston and Dove viaducts; Duke Street sidings at Derby; and the cost of 44+1⁄2 acres of land at Derby, amounting to £207,861, or almost £1 per square yard.

[12][13] Later the GNR conceded running powers to Pinxton, Hawkins Lane, Heanor, and the Stanton branches to the London and North Western Railway.

The junction at Colwick was moved further towards Grantham and further siding accommodation was provided in the space newly enclosed by the relocated route.

[22] In the closing years of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth, railway excursions, and trains to holiday destinations became increasingly important.

On Whit-Monday 1895 over 1,000 passengers booked from Friargate to Skegness, 165 to York and Scarborough, 150 to Bottesford (for Belvoir Castle), 95 to Mablethorpe, 65 to Ashbourne (for Dovedale), 40 to Sutton-on-Sea, 40 to Grantham and 30 to Boston.

[27] During World War II a military ordnance depot was opened at West Hallam in 1941, with an extensive internal siding network.

[27] Burton and Stafford services finished on 4 December 1939 but holiday trains and excursions ran west of Derby until 7 September 1964.