It was built to shorten the distance by train to Ilkeston and towns on the Leen Valley railway line, and to connect important brickworks near Nottingham.

The short line was expensive to build due to difficult topography; it opened in December 1889, and was worked by the Great Northern Railway; the trains used that company's Nottingham terminus.

The line was soon by-passed by another route to the Leen Valley, and electric street-running trams attracted most of the local passenger business.

In 1885 a group of local businesspeople formed a project to make a new railway running more directly to Daybrook; as well as greatly shortening the journey for the growing residential passenger business, the line would link in important brickworks at Thorneywood and Mapperley.

[3][5][6] Nevertheless the GNR agreed to guarantee 3.5% on the projected £215,000 cost of the construction, and this and the working agreement were authorised by a second Act of 25 June 1887.

Land itself was inexpensive and most of the [£250,000 construction cost] was spent on conquering the undulating terrain around Mapperley with 1,048 yd of tunnelling, numerous embankments and cuttings, and a dozen or more substantial bridges.

The first train was delayed when the contractor's agent stopped it by standing on the line showing a red flag at Trent Lane Junction; the contractor Edwards claimed he was still in possession of the line, not having been paid fully, although the company had obtained an injunction forbidding this interference.

[11] If the future seemed rosy, Anderson provides a measured view of this achievement: ... even as the inaugural train climbed away from Trent Lane, construction work was in progress on the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire line to Annesley.

By 1900 this new railway had been extended through Nottingham itself and as it provided the GNR with an even more convenient route to the west the majority of local services were diverted on to it.

Overnight the Suburban route had lost its raison d'etre and, furthermore, what few customers its three stations had managed to attract were soon tempted away by electric trams which began to serve Sherwood in 1901.

[note 3][13] The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway decided to build a London Extension from Annesley, passing through Nottingham, obtaining Parliamentary authority in 1893.

[3][16] In 1901 electric trams started operation in Nottingham,[17] and extensions to the network resulted in effective competition with the passenger traffic to the intermediate stations on the line, which declined sharply.