Langley Mill railway station (Erewash Valley line)

Langley Mill railway station was a railway station which served the village of Langley Mill in Derbyshire, England. It was opened in 1895 by the Midland Railway on its branch between Heanor Junction on the Erewash Valley Line and Ripley.

Langley Mill railway station in relation to its lines and the adjacent Langley Mill and Eastwood station on the Erewash Valley Line.

Langley Mill
LocationLangley Mill, Amber Valley
England
Coordinates53.0177°N 1.3315°W / 53.0177; -1.3315
Other information
StatusDisused
History
Pre-groupingMidland Railway
Post-groupingLondon Midland and Scottish Railway
Key dates
1 October 1895Station opens
1 January 1917closed
3 May 1920reopened
4 May 1926Station closes [1]

There was already a station on the Erewash Line, known as Langley Mill and Eastwood, and a Great Northern station called Eastwood and Langley Mill, which opened in 1847 and 1876 respectively. Because this branch station had no passenger connection to the earlier one, it was regarded by the railway as a separate station and was even shown as such on Ordnance Survey maps even though the platforms were adjacent.[2]

Snip from Nineteenth Century Ordnance Survey map showing two stations. This carried on until at least 1940

History

The line came into being as competition for the GNR's branch. It was completed as far as Heanor by 1890, but took another five years to reach Langley Mill where it joined a line called the Heanor Goods Branch which actually connected to a Butterley Company line to a group of collieries around Heanor.[3] It then passed along a short tightly curved spur to reach the platform with its own waiting room and toilet. A runaround loop was provided but no means for turning.[4]

The line had been built for colliery traffic and passengers were an incidental, so only a shuttle was considered necessary. However, some trains ran between Nottingham and Ambergate or Chesterfield. One particularly complex service ran from Nottingham through Basford and Kimberley to Ilkeston Town, then via Langley Mill through Ripley and Butterley to Chesterfield.[5]

Services ended during the First World War, and the Kimberley Line closed completely. After the war the Langley Mill to Ripley line reopened in 1920. In the Grouping of all lines, into four main companies, in 1923 the station became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. From 1914 the line had been in competition with a tramcar service opened by the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Company.[6] To reduce costs a Sentinel Steam Railcar was introduced in 1925, but the line finally closed to passengers with the General Strike the following year.

See also

References
  1. Butt, R.V.J., (1995) The Directory of Railway Stations, Yeovil: Patrick Stephens
  2. This unusual state of affairs is present with Manchester Victoria and Exchange stations, where a platform met end to end, but these were opened by different companies
  3. Midland Railway System Maps,(The Distance Diagrams) Volume 2 (1998) Teignmouth: Peter Kay ISBN 1-899890-17-3
  4. Sprenger, H., (2009) Rails to Ripley, Southampton: Kestrel
  5. Anderson, P.H., (1985 2nd ed) Forgotten Railways Vol 2: The East Midlands, Newton Abbot: David and Charles
  6. Huson, S., (2009) Derbyshire in the age of steam, Newbury: Countryside Books
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