Erewash Valley Line - History

History

The Erewash Valley Line has historic, but troubled, origins. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Nottinghamshire coalminers had a lucrative trade with Leicester using the Erewash Canal, the River Trent and the Leicester Navigation. The Leicester miners had attempted to compete by building the Charnwood Forest Canal but this was unsuccessful. However, in 1832, they opened the Leicester and Swannington Railway.

The Nottinghamshire miners already had a tramway, the Mansfield and Pinxton Railway. They attempted to raise the funds for a railway to Leicester but found it difficult to attract investors. Their ideas developed into a line linking Nottingham to Derby and Leicester which would carry their coal from the Erewash Valley. This was the beginning of the Midland Counties Railway, and they attracted the attention of Lancashire and Yorkshire financiers. The idea developed further into a connection to the London and Birmingham Railway at Rugby. However, a proposed connection from the north of the Erewash to Chesterfield was its undoing, since it would compete with the North Midland Railway.

The building of the Midland Counties Railway went ahead without the Erewash Valley Line. However, in 1844, the Midland Railway was formed through the amalgamation of the North Midland, the Midland Counties and the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway. The Midland almost immediately acquired the "Leicester and Swannington" and the "Mansfield and Pinxton".

Finally in 1844 it built the Erewash Valley line as far as Pinxton in 1847, with a link to the Butterley Company's own railway at Codnor Park in 1849. The line was finally completed to Chesterfield in 1862.

It was immediately successful, not only serving the collieries but also the ironworks and brickworks around Ripley, particularly the Butterley Company. By the end of the century, it was also carrying main-line expresses from London to Leeds and Settle and Carlisle Line services to Scotland, while the main line to Derby served the expresses to Manchester, and the main line to Nottingham used the Corby line from Kettering and ran through the now closed Old Dalby line diverting near Melton Mowbray.