page_title: Erewash Valley line
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Erewash Valley line / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Up Goods train at Stoneyford Junction Box, Erewash Valley main line. View northward, towards Chesterfield etc. This Box was between Langley Mill (to the south) and Codnor Park; the 'junction' was only to some sidings [as far as I am aware]. However, this four-track main line was very busy - until the 1980s when coal-mining virtually ended - with traffic between the many collieries along the Erewash Valley and branches to/from Toton Yard, as well as with north/south freight traffic on the ex-Midland trunk route linking London, Leicester, Nottingham etc. with Sheffield, Leeds etc. The locomotive is a BR Standard 5MT 4-6-0 No. 73137.
context_page_description: The Erewash Valley line is a railway line in Britain running from south of Chesterfield along the Erewash Valley to Trent Junction at Long Eaton, joining the Midland Main Line at each end.
context_section_description: 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–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.
  The Grade II* listed disused wrought iron Bennerley Viaduct once carried the GNR Derbyshire and Staffordshire Extension over the line.
caption: Up goods train at Stoneyford Junction Box in 1963
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