Most of the collieries closed by the 1990s; but the line remained important for coal transportation both north and southwards to the Aire and Trent Valley power stations.
Parliamentary permission to build the line was authorised with the passing of the South Yorkshire Joint Railway Act on 14 August 1903, and the formation of the South Yorkshire Joint Line Committee; formed from the railway companies: NER, L&YR, GNR, MR, and GCR.
This was the result of the new Firbeck and Harworth collieries coming into full production and their branch lines becoming part of the SYJR.
This produced a net revenue for the SYJR of £81,000 – equal to about £5.3 million in 2020 prices, an astonishing figure for a line (excluding sidings) of just under 30 miles (48 km).
Four passenger trains each way daily were operated by the GCR and the GNR and these ran between Doncaster, over the Great Northern Main Line as far as Potteric Carr junction, and Shireoaks.
There are plans to reroute the intermodal trains via Maltby over the South Yorkshire Joint line to the I-Port but no date has been given yet.
[4][5] Doncaster International Railport, which opened in 2012 south-east of junction 3 of the M18 motorway, uses the line as its primary rail access point.