In the second half of the twentieth century, passenger and ordinary goods business in the Mansfield area declined substantially, leaving only a limited coal traffic via Codnor Park from 1970.

The canal age had resulted in a network that greatly reduced transport costs, but topography, in particular hilly terrain, left some localities deprived of the amenity.

Its declared purpose was to convey heavy minerals, chiefly coal, lead and limestone at first, to and from the Pinxton basin of the Cromford canal.

Immediately after authorisation a meeting of the proprietors took place, indicating that businesspeople had already committed to funding the construction, and no general invitation to subscribe was required.

"[4][2] This was evidently a major event in the locality: crowds met the incoming train at the five-arch bridge "where they met ten waggons laden with coal from the Pinxton colliery... the assemblage amounted to some thousands... Having arrived at the market-place about three o'clock, which, not withstanding the heavy rain falling at the time was thronged with people, the band struck up "God Save the King"... Nearly three hundred of the workmen who had been employed during the last three months on the road, then returned to partake of a dinner, provided for them by the proprietors, at different public houses in the town.

[4] The railway was to be operated as a toll road: tonnage rates were set; owners of land adjacent to the line were to establish wharfs (goods sidings) and the company could step in if they failed to do so.

From Mansfield to the summit level there was a rise of 89 ft; it then fell 181 feet[note 1] to the Pinxton terminal.

Losing that advantage was only justified if edge rails enabled heavier loads to be hauled by a horse; there seemed to be a lack of objective evidence on that point.

[10] The Board of Trade Inspecting Officer visited on 25 September 1849, and his report mistakenly refers to a gauge of 4 ft 4 in.

[note 2][11] At the first proprietors' meeting in April 1820 it was announced that the cost of building the railway had been £35,000, "which had put the Company and its investors into debt".

Most of the traffic in later years was coal from pits alongside the lower part of the line to the industrial and domestic hearths of Mansfield.

Nevertheless, one of Britain's most famous landmarks, the Palace of Westminster (the Houses of Parliament) was rebuilt during the mid-1830s using limestone transported over the Pinxton line.

Mansfield dispatched its renowned moulding sand to local ironworks via the railway and received wagons of metal for its foundries.

The work progressed rapidly, and on 24 August 1849 a contractor's locomotive visited Mansfield, attracting considerable local attention.

[16] Mineral workings over the Codnor Park line (not requiring Board of Trade approval), and passenger services from Mansfield to Nottingham, commenced on 9 October 1849.

The Codnor Park-Mansfield railway climbed gently up the Erewash Valley to join the old tramway formation east of Pinxton basin.

[21] Numerous other collieries directly on the former Mansfield and Pinxton line opened towards the end of the nineteenth century, as technological improvements enabled the exploitation of the deeper seams.

By this time local passenger traffic (and the ordinary goods business) had been hard hit by road competition.

[22] In June 1975 all goods facilities at Mansfield were withdrawn, so that the local rail network was entirely dependent on coal traffic.

The Midland Railway Leen Valley route had already been severed between Kirkby in Ashfield and Annesley on 11 October 1970.

[23] A body of opinion developed in favour of funding reinstatement of the Leen Valley services to Mansfield, and the British Railways Act 1990 (c. xxv) authorising the Newstead - Kirkby link was passed on 26 July 1990; the term 'Robin Hood Line' was adopted.