Skellingthorpe (Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway) railway station is one of two former

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

s in

Skellingthorpe Skellingthorpe is a village and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the village at the 2011 census was 3,465. It is situated west of Lincoln, England, Lincoln, southeast of Saxilby, north ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

, England. It replaced the former station on the GNR.

Context

An earlier station to serve the village had been opened by the

Great Northern Railway Great Northern Railway or Great Northern Railroad may refer to: Australia * Great Northern Railway (Queensland) in Australia * Great Northern Rail Services in Victoria, Australia *Central Australia Railway was known as the great Northern Railway ...

on the line between

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the 16th president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln (na ...

and

Gainsborough Gainsborough or Gainsboro may refer to: Places * Gainsborough, Ipswich, Suffolk, England ** Gainsborough Ward, Ipswich * Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, a town in England ** Gainsborough (UK Parliament constituency) * Gainsborough, Saskatchewan, Ca ...

, situated at the end of Ferry Lane. It opened in 1865 and closed in 1868, although the line is still operational today. This second station was opened in March 1897 by the

Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (LD&ECR) was built to connect coalfields in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire with Warrington and a new port on the Lincolnshire coast. It was a huge undertaking, and the company was unable to raise ...

on its main line from Chesterfield to

. It was closed by

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commis ...

in 1955, though freight and passenger trains continued to pass through for some years after that. Skellingthorpe was the only LD&ECR station in Lincolnshire, since to the east the line joined the GN&GE Joint line at Pyewipe Junction onto GNR metals into

while to the west the line crossed the Nottinghamshire border before the next station at Harby. Only two LD&ECR stations had a level crossing, Skellingthorpe and . The station building stood to the north of the tracks. It was built in the LD&ECR's standard modular style.

Former services

There never was a Sunday service at Skellingthorpe. In 1922 three trains per day plied between Chesterfield Market Place and Lincoln with a market day extra on Fridays between Langwith Junction and Lincoln. All these trains called at Skellingthorpe. From 1951 trains stopped running through to Chesterfield, turning back at Langwith Junction instead. Otherwise the same pattern continued until the last train on 19 September 1955. Trains continued to pass, including Summer excursions which continued until 1964, but the picture was of progressive decline. A derailment at Clifton-on-Trent on 21 February 1980 led to the immediate closure of the line from

High Marnham Power Station High Marnham Power Station was a coal fuelled power station in Nottinghamshire, to the west of the River Trent, approximately north of the village of High Marnham. Construction site clearance began in November 1955, No. 1 Unit power generatio ...

through the station to Pyewipe Junction. These tracks were subsequently lifted.

Modern times

Today the trackbed eastwards from the site of Fledborough Station, across

Fledborough Viaduct Fledborough Viaduct is a former railway viaduct near Fledborough, Nottinghamshire which is now part of the national cycle network. History The viaduct is a substantial structure which carried the double-track LD&ECR's Chesterfield Market ...

, through Clifton-on-Trent to Doddington and Harby forms an off-road part of ''National Cycle Route 647'' which is part of the

National Cycle Network The National Cycle Network (NCN) was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout the United Kingdom, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the charity Sustrans who were aided by a £42.5 million N ...

. From the site of Doddington and Harby onwards through the site of Skellingthorpe station almost to Pyewipe Junction the trackbed forms an off-road part of ''National Cycle Route 64''.Fledborough to Lincoln by Bike
''Cycle-route''

References

Sources

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External links