Skellingthorpe railway station


Skellingthorpe railway station is one of two former railway station in Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, on the border with Nottinghamshire.

Context

The first station to serve the village was opened by the Great Northern Railway on the line between Lincoln and Gainsborough which 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 on its main line from Chesterfield to Lincoln. It was closed by British Railways in 1955, though freight and passenger trains continued to pass for some years after that.
It was the only LD&ECR station in Lincolnshire, since to the east it crossed the GN&GE Joint line at Pyewipe Junction onto GNR metals into Lincoln. 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 3 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, 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.
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.