Dovecliffe railway station was situated on the

South Yorkshire Railway The South Yorkshire Railway was a railway company with lines in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Initially promoted as the South Yorkshire Coal Railway in 1845, the railway was enabled by an act of 1847 as the South Yorkshire Doncaster and ...

's Blackburn Valley line between and

Wombwell Wombwell () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. The town in the 2011 census was split between a ward called Wombwell, as well as small parts that fell under two other wards called Darfield (specifically ...

Main Junction.

History

The station opened with the line on 4 September 1854 and closed on 7 December 1953. The line through the station remained open until the 1986 to allow freight access to

Barrow Colliery Barrow Colliery was a coal mine in Worsborough, South Yorkshire, England. It was first dug in 1873, with the first coal being brought to the surface in January 1876. It was the scene of a major incident in 1907 when seven miners died. After 109 ...

, although the through line to Sheffield was severed between Birdwell and Westwood in the late 1960s with the construction of the M1 motorway. The station was originally named Smithley for Darley Main & Worsborough but its name was changed by the end of 1855 to Darkcliffe and again in early 1860 to Dovecliffe. It was controlled by a signal box which sat on the station roof. When the line opened, as a single line, there was no block working and when a box was needed it was required to be placed on the outer side of a bend to give better visibility. With the station buildings being very close to the level crossing the only place where the box could be erected was on the station roof.

Route

References

*"The South Yorkshire Railway", D. L. Franks. Turntable Enterprises, 1971. *Various articles by D. L. Franks which appeared in "Forward", the journal of the Great Central Railway Society, {{ISSN, 0141-4488 Disused railway stations in Barnsley Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1854 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1953 Former South Yorkshire Railway stations 1854 establishments in England