The Isle of Axholme lies to the west of the River Trent and to the east of Hatfield Chase, a vast area of low-lying land which was described as a badly drained swamp in the 1620s.

[2] In the reign of King Charles I, the Dutch drainage engineer Cornelius Vermuyden set about draining Hatfield Chase, containing some 70,000 acres (280 km2) of wetland, in 1626.

[6] The South Yorkshire Railway built a line which ran broadly parallel to the Stainforth and Keadby Canal, passing through Crowle.

A public enquiry held in Goole on 8 October 1897 showed that the plans, which would cost £59,602 to implement, had local support, and the farmers' club estimated that the railway would carry 51,625 tons of agricultural produce per year.

A request by the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation Company that the swing bridge over the canal near Crowle should be maintained in the open position to allow free passage of boats, rather than in the closed position to prefer the railway, was refused, as was an application for running powers over the line by the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway.

[13] They paid £73,500 for the Goole and Marshland line, which had been completed, and £27,500 for the Isle of Axholme Light Railway, which was still in the early stages of construction.

[14] Construction of the Goole and Marshland Light Railway began on 22 September 1898 at Eastoft, where the first sod was cut by the chairman, William Halkon.

[22] The line involved more earthworks than the Goole and Marshland Light Railway, with major cuttings at Haxey and Epworth, where steam excavators were used, and a swing bridge over the canal at Crowle.

[25] Only Crowle swing bridge remained to be finished by March 1904, and the southern section opened for goods traffic on 14 November.

The Board of Trade required several improvements to be made before it passed the line as suitable for passengers, and the formal opening took place on 2 January 1905.

[27] Facilities were limited, with a borehole 230 feet (70 m) deep supplying a water column at Sandtoft, and a run-round loop with a lever frame at Hatfield Moor, where the staff consisted of a single porter.

They held discussions in September 1909, but the BMLC continued to transport their peat overland to Maud's Bridge goods yard, on the Doncaster to Scunthorpe line.

The exact outcome is not clear, but a siding was laid into the works, which was operational from 10 August 1903, and the peat railway was lifted at about that time.

Cheap fares and a steam railcar did not halt the decline, although in the last days of operation, five trains were run on Saturdays, three on Wednesdays and two on other weekdays.

Excursions from the Isle of Axholme to Blackpool were popular, with over 600 passengers on such a trip in 1913, and 750 visiting the Great Yorkshire Show at Hull in 1922.

In the 1920s, stations notified the control centre at Goole of the number of wagons they would need for consignments of peas and potatoes, and could also request additional trains.

4,000 tons of green peas were despatched during the 1926 growing season, and in the following year, 7,000 bundles of celery left Epworth station in a three-day period.

The section from Haxey Junction to Epworth was closed on 1 February 1956,[34] by which time most of the traffic was peat, supplemented by seasonal sugar-beet.

[35] Although closed, the line was not lifted, and was maintained as a long siding until 1972, on behalf of the Central Electricity Generating Board, who paid for its maintenance.

[36] Between Smith's and Glossop's sidings, the track was crossed by a tramway owned by the British Moss Litter Company and used for conveying peat.

[37] The bridge over Swinefleet Warping Drain was the subject of an unusual request from Colonel Thompson in 1906, who asked permission for 16 of his female potato pickers to cross it to reach their place of work.

Reedness Junction had a brick-built water tower, a house for the station master, and sidings to the north, accessible from the Fockerby Branch.

Using Army-surplus equipment from the First World War, he built 1.25 miles (2.0 km) of 2 ft (610 mm) gauge tramway in 1920 to bring produce from his farm to the sidings.

Epworth had a passing loop and sidings to the east, with the track crossing the High Street on a brick bridge to the south of the station.

The locomotives took their name from William Barton Wright, who was the chief mechanical engineer for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway at the time they were introduced.

[56] In 1907, the company looked at using petrol-electric autocars for the passenger services, but were advised that they would not be economic, as conventional trains would still be required on Wednesdays and Saturdays to cope with the volume of traffic.

[57] However, in July 1926 they conducted trials with a Sentinel-Cammell steam railcar, which was borrowed from the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).

Before passenger services were withdrawn in 1933, it ran 53,786 miles (86,560 km), working two return trips from Goole to Haxey Junction on weekdays, three on Wednesdays, and five on Saturdays.

They were popular with the crews, as the tender was fitted with a back sheet for the cab, and was low enough to provide good visibility when running tender-first across the moors on the return journey to Goole.

The last passenger train was a 4-car diesel multiple unit, hired by the North Axholme Secondary School at Crowle on 1 April 1965.