Wickersley - A Fictional History

In the late-18^th century a group of local entrepreneurs and mine owners sough to build a new line running from Retford in Nottinghamshire to Mexborough in South Yorkshire to carry coal from the mines to Nottinghamshire factories and finished goods such as cloth in the return direction. The line reached Wickersley from Retford, via Wigthorpe and Dinnington but the extension to Mexborough failed to get the necessary funds. The Retford and Wickersley Railway, as it was known, was later bought out by the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway. The MS&LR (later the Great Central Railway) in order to gain access to the line without having to go via Retford built a connecting spur from just east of Woodhouse Junction to a point just east of Wickersley– with trains having to reverse there before carrying on to Retford (Central). The line was of course later absorbed with the rest of the GCR into the LNER and later BR's Eastern Region.

Wickersley itself was a fairly constrained station, with freight being dealt further down the line. The station itself facilitated to mostly only passenger traffic and parcel trains. There was a local stopping service between Wickersley and Retford as well as a connecting service from Darnall to Retford calling only at Wickersley, where it reversed. The station also saw the odd diverted service when the line via Worksop was undergoing maintenance. The line survived the Beeching Axe only to be closed in the mid-1970s as the local coal traffic disappeared. It is shown as it would have been in the Autumn/Winter of 1962, when ex-LNER K3 2-6-0s would soon disappear and the Sheffield sheds gained their first English Electic Type 3's (Class 37).

Note: This page is due to be edited with a new 'history' - that Wickersley is a branch of the former South Yorkshire Joint Railway.