Skellingthorpe railway station is one of two 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 ...

Skellingthorpe Skellingthorpe is a village and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 3,465. It is situated west from Lincoln city centre, and just outside the A46 ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

, England, on the border with

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 ...

Context

The first station to serve the village was opened by the Great Northern Railway on the line between

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

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, New South Wales, ...

. It closed in 1868, although the line is still operational today. The 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 Chesterfield may refer to: Places Canada * Rural Municipality of Chesterfield No. 261, Saskatchewan * Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut United Kingdom * Chesterfield, Derbyshire, a market town in England ** Chesterfield (UK Parliament constitue ...

. It was closed by

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

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 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 Pl ...

, 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) is the national cycling route network of the United Kingdom, which was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout Britain, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the cha ...

. 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