Shirebrook railway station

Shirebrook
Shirebrook railway station in 2011.
Location
Place	Shirebrook
Local authority	Bolsover
Coordinates	53°12′15″N 1°12′09″W / 53.2041°N 1.2026°WCoordinates: 53°12′15″N 1°12′09″W / 53.2041°N 1.2026°W
Grid reference	SK533677
Operations
Station code	SHB
Managed by	East Midlands Trains
Number of platforms	2
DfT category	F1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	61,042
2011/12	66,668
2012/13	71,774
2013/14	63,635
2014/15	74,738
History
Original company	Midland Railway
Pre-grouping	Midland Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
1 June 1875	Opened as Shirebrook
18 June 1951	Renamed Shirebrook West
12 October 1964	Closed
1998	Reopened as Shirebrook
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Shirebrook from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Shirebrook railway station serves the town of Shirebrook in Derbyshire, England. The station is on the Robin Hood Line, 21½ miles (35 km) north of Nottingham towards Worksop.

Services

Monday to Saturdays, there is generally an hourly service from Shirebrook eastbound towards Worksop and southbound to Mansfield and Nottingham.

On Sundays from 22 May 2011, the Robin Hood line train service runs between Nottingham and Mansfield Woodhouse only. Bus service RH1 replaces Robin Hood line trains between Worksop and Mansfield Woodhouse. It calls at Whitwell, Creswell, Langwith Whaley Thorns and Shirebrook stations and connects with selected trains at Mansfield Woodhouse.

Shirebrook West Station in 1957

History

The line and the station were built by the Midland Railway. The station was designed by the Midland Railway company architect John Holloway Sanders.^[1]

In 1951, the station was renamed "Shirebrook West" despite being on the eastern edge of the village. This was to "avoid confusion" with three other stations:

• Shirebrook North built by the LD&ECR^[2] in 1897. Despite its name, Shirebrook North was not actually in Shirebrook, but in nearby Langwith Junction.
• Shirebrook South built by the GNR on their line from Langwith Junction to Nottingham Victoria via Pleasley East. This line used to pass through the middle of Shirebrook by a massive embankment, cutting the village in two. Shirebrook South actually was in southern Shirebrook.
• Shirebrook Colliery (later renamed Shirebrook Colliery Sidings) for colliery workmens' trains only.

Shirebrook South closed to regular passenger services in 1931, but excursions continued to call at least until 1957. Shirebrook North closed to regular passenger services in 1955, but excursions continued to call until 1964. Shirebrook Colliery Sidings closed by June 1954.^[3]

Branch lines

Two branch lines are plainly visible veering off north of the bridge at the north end of Shirebrook station.

The double tracks branching off eastwards (i.e. to the right as viewed from the station) to the side of the signalbox joined the LD&ECR's one-time main line to Lincoln, next stop Warsop. The branch only ever carried a regular passenger service for a few years in Edwardian times. It did, however, carry Summer holiday trains such as the Summer Saturdays Radford to Skegness in at least 1963.^[4] The branch's main purpose was always freight traffic, with coal being overwhelmingly dominant.

In 2013 the line gives access to UK Coal's Thoresby Colliery and to the High Marnham Test Track.

There is some hope of reopening the line as a branch off the Robin Hood Line and reopening Warsop, Edwinstowe and Ollerton stations, providing an hourly service to Mansfield and Nottingham.^[5]

The single line veering off westwards (to the left as viewed from the station) was removed in the 1940s and relaid in 1974. It used to have a matching second track coming down on the other side of the main lines, behind the signalbox as viewed from the station, but that was not reinstated.

The reinstated single line serves W H Davis's wagon works in Langwith Junction. From 1900 to 1939 the pair of lines enabled trains to run from Sheffield through Spinkhill, Clowne South, Creswell's old "Top Station" (Creswell and Welbeck), Shirebrook North, Shirebrook West, and Mansfield Woodhouse to Mansfield.

Finally, up to 1974 the next station north from Shirebrook on what is now the Robin Hood Line was not Langwith-Whaley Thorns but simply "Langwith". That station was at Langwith Maltings. In the 1964-1998 closure period it was demolished. As a new station would have to be built at Langwith when the Robin Hood Line was to be reopened it was decided that the community would be better served by a station at Nether Langwith/Whaley Thorns than at the old station site.

References

Notes

1. "Notes by the Way.". Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald. British Newspaper Archive. 1 November 1884. Retrieved 12 July 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
2. Cupit & Taylor 1984.
3. Butt 1995, p. 211.
4. 1963 Shirebrook-Warsop Timetable: via psul4all
5. Lambourne, Helen (22 July 2009). "New bid to extend rail link to Ollerton". Worksop Today. Retrieved 21 February 2010.

Sources

• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199.
• Cupit, J.; Taylor, W. (1984) [1966]. The Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway. Oakwood Library of Railway History (2nd ed.). Headington: Oakwood Press. ISBN 0-85361-302-8. OL19.
• Hurst, Geoffrey (1987). The Midland Railway Around Nottinghamshire, Volume 1. Worksop: Milepost Publications. ISBN 0-947796-05-3.

Other reading

• Little, Lawson (1995). Langwith Junction, the Life and Times of a Railway Village. Newark: Vesper Publications. ISBN 0 9526171 0 2.

External links

• Train times and station information for Shirebrook railway station from National Rail
• The station on an Edwardian 6" OS map, via National Library of Scotland
• The station on a navigable 1947 OS Map, via npe Maps
• The station, line and mileages, via Railway Mileages

Preceding station		National Rail		Following station
Mansfield Woodhouse		East Midlands Trains Robin Hood Line		Langwith-Whaley Thorns
	Disused railways
Mansfield Woodhouse Line and station open		LD&ECR & MR Mansfield-Sheffield Service		Shirebrook North Line and station closed
Mansfield Woodhouse Line and station open		LD&ECR & MR Early Mansfield-Sheffield Service		Warsop Line and station closed
Mansfield Woodhouse Line and station open		MR 1875-1964 Nottingham-Worksop Service		Langwith Line open, station closed