| On the 16th July 1846
an Act of Parliament gave authority for the Ambergate, Nottingham
and Boston and Eastern Junction Railway Company to build a
line serving the towns and regions listed in its title. This
was a grand and ambitious scheme even for this time of the
early railway boom and it soon became clear that sufficient
finances were not available and that other competing schemes
were already beginning to establish themselves over the same
territory. However an agreement was made with the Midland
Railway, which allowed the ANB & EJ Railway to build a
line linking Grantham with Nottingham. It joined the Midland
line at Colwick and ran into the Midland's Nottingham station.
This line opened for business on the 15th July 1850 with its
own independent station at Grantham. This latter arrangement
did not last long. The Great Northern Railway reached Grantham
in 1852 and it soon became clear that it was to the advantage
of the ANB & EJ Railway to close their station and arrange
to run their Nottingham to Grantham trains into the new GNR
main line station.
This collaboration with
the GNR was soon extended through an 1855 agreement that the
GNR's trains should be allowed to travel into Nottingham over
the ANB & EJ Railway's line and into the Nottingham Midland
station. It appears that the Midland Railway Company was not
party to this agreement since, when the first GNR train arrived
in Nottingham the Midland claimed it was trespassing, seized
the locomotive, hauled it away to a shed and removed the lines
to prevent the GNR getting it back whilst litigation took
place - a long and costly process. The outcome was that the
GNR built their own connection from Colwick into Nottingham
with the terminus at what became known as the London Road
Low Level Station, which can still be seen today functioning
as a Health and Fitness Club at the north end of London Road.
The Colwick link was not used again until after the closure
of Nottingham's Victoria station in September 1967.
The line that ran along
the course of what is now the Linear Walk was the second line
to be built in Bingham. An Act of Parliament passed in 1874
authorised the GNR and the London & North Western Railway
to build a joint line to link Newark with Market Harborough
with a branch from Marfield to Leicester (Belgrave Gate) and
a second branch from Harby and Stathern to form a junction
with the Grantham to Nottingham line at Saxondale and then
on to the GNR terminus at Nottingham, London Road Low Level
station.
This line
from Saxondale opened for goods traffic as far as Melton Mowbray
in July 1879 and for passengers in the following September.
A station known as Bingham Road together with a Station Master's
house was built at a point not far from where the present
Linear Walk starts on Nottingham Road; the station house is
still there as a private residence. It was at this point that
a bridge took the line across Nottingham Road and along an
embankment across what is now the Wynhill Estate. The line
was never popular with travellers as the service was slow
and infrequent but significant freight was carried. The GNR
used the line to move iron ore from east Leicestershire to
the Stanton Ironworks at Ilkeston and the LNWR moved coal
from the Notts and Derby Coalfields to London. Bingham Road
station was closed in July 1951 and the line from Saxondale
Junction to Barnstone was closed to all traffic on the 9th.
September 1962, with the line and the bridge being dismantled
shortly afterwards. In 1964 plans were announced to close
passenger stations on the Nottingham to Grantham line, including
Bingham, but that was averted.
Please click
on the images to enlarge
1884 Map
|
Bingham Road station and bridge |
Tithby
Road bridge in 1962 |
Tithby Road
bridge in 2001 |
Bingham Road station. |
Bingham Station
|
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