Ollerton railway station is a former

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

Ollerton Ollerton is a town in the Newark and Sherwood District, Nottinghamshire, England, on the edge of Sherwood Forest in the area known as the Dukeries. It forms part of the civil parish of Ollerton and Boughton. OS Explorer Map 270: Sherwood Forest: ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

, England.

History

The station was opened by the LD&ECR in 1896 and closed to local passenger traffic in 1955, though Summer holiday excursions to and from the East Coast continued to call until September 1964. The station, goods shed and signalbox were built to standard LD&ECR patterns. Large water tanks were erected at both ends of the site.

Former Services

There never was a Sunday service at Ollerton. Two services called at Ollerton 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 all stations. The truncated remains of this service ended in September 1955. Three trains per day terminated at Ollerton from Nottingham Victoria via Mansfield Central then went back again half an hour or so later. This service was later cut back to Edwinstowe. A fourth train ran to Nottingham Victoria Monday to Friday, but on Saturdays it started from Lincoln and ran through to Leicester Central. This service did not survive the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Summer Saturday holiday trains survived until 1964.

Royal Trains

As a marketing device the LD&ECR called itself "The Dukeries Route" because the line passed through an area of great landed estates. This led to visits to the area by Queen Victoria's son Edward, first as Prince of Wales and later as King Edward VII, usually in connection with a race meeting such as the

St Leger The St Leger Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run at Doncaster over a d ...

. The

Royal Train A royal train is a set of railway carriages dedicated for the use of the monarch or other members of a royal family. Most monarchies with a railway system employ a set of royal carriages. Australia The various government railway operators of A ...

used Ollerton station from which the Royal Party went to a ducal residence by road.

Coal

A branch was built to serve Ollerton Colliery which opened in 1926. This branch has now been severed from the "Main Line". In the mid-twentieth century, the LMS and

LNER LNER may refer to: * London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 * London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a typ ...

jointly proposed a coal line to be called the ''Mid-Notts Joint Railway'' from Bestwood Park Junction, near

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

to Checker House Junction on the former GCR line near

Retford Retford (), also known as East Retford, is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England, and one of the oldest English market towns having been granted its first charter in 1105. It lies on the River Idle and the Chesterfie ...

. Only the section between Ollerton and

Farnsfield Farnsfield is a large village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire in Sherwood Forest. It is in the local government district of Newark and Sherwood. The population of the civil parish as at the 2011 Census was 2,731, an increase from 2,681 in ...

was built. The southern section to Bestwood Park was completed in the 1950s to serve the new Calverton Colliery. Further eastwards the line climbed at around 1-in-150 towards Boughton as it crossed a ridge before the valley of the

River Trent The Trent is the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, third-longest river in the United Kingdom. Its Source (river or stream), source is in Staffordshire, on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through and drains the North Midland ...

Modern Times

The line through Ollerton Station was reopened to non-passenger traffic in August 2009 as the

High Marnham Test Track The High Marnham Test Track is a linear railway test track created in 2009 and centred on Lodge Lane, Tuxford, in Nottinghamshire in the United Kingdom. It houses Network Rail's Rail Innovation & Development Centre (RIDC), originally known a ...

. The line is used by Network Rail to test new engineering trains and on-track plant. The new test line runs from Thoresby Colliery Junction to the site of the partially demolished High Marnham Power Station, and passes former station sites of Ollerton, Boughton, Tuxford Central and Dukeries Junction, all these stations were closed by 1955. Remarkably, the platforms remained in place in Spring 2018, 54 years after closure.

The Future

There is some hope of reopening the line as a branch off the

Robin Hood Line The Robin Hood Line is a railway line running from Nottingham to Worksop, Nottinghamshire, in the United Kingdom. The stations between Shirebrook and Whitwell (inclusive) are in Derbyshire. Passenger services are operated by East Midlands Rai ...

and reopening

Warsop Warsop is a town and civil parish in the Mansfield district, Nottinghamshire, England, on the outskirts of the remnants of Sherwood Forest.OS Explorer Map 270: Sherwood Forest: (1:25 000): At the 2001 census it had a population of 12,365, reducin ...

Edwinstowe Edwinstowe is a large village and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district of Nottinghamshire, England, on the edge of Sherwood Forest. It is associated with the legends of Robin Hood and Maid Marian and known for the proximity of the f ...

and Ollerton stations, providing an hourly service to Mansfield and Nottingham.

References

Sources

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