Beighton Junction is a set of railway junctions near Beighton on the border between Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, England.
Scope The term Beighton Junction has been used in a narrow sense to encompass either one, two or three junctions, according to author's purposes, or even as a shorthand for Beighton Junction Signalbox.
The narrowest possible scope concerns the original Beighton Junction, which, essentially, stands today, i.e.:
the single, core junction of a pair of lines east from Sheffield and a pair south from Rotherham. This has been constant from 1849, referred to hereafter as Beighton Junction 1849.
On 1 December 1891 the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway (MS&LR) started running trains drawn by contractor's locomotives south from a new, additional, "Beighton Junction", approximately 500 yards north west of the first Beighton Junction on the MS&LR, labelled in later Midland system maps as: "Beighton Junction G.C.", referred to hereafter as Beighton Junction 1891.
In 1900 the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (LD&ECR) made another, additional, junction south of the first. This pair of junctions were thereafter often referred to collectively as "Beighton Junction" as was the adjacent signal box. Their components were recorded as: "GC Line Junction (Sheffield Section)" (the original and remaining junction Beighton Junction 1849) and, "GC Line Junction (LD&EC Section)", referred to hereafter as Beighton Junction 1900.
This complex evolution is addressed by the accompanying Route Diagram "Beighton Junction detail."
This article treats these junctions as the lynch pin of a complex interweaving triangular network of lines, stretching over two miles from Killamarsh in the south to Beighton station in the north west and to in the north east. That triangle as a whole is addressed by the accompanying Route Diagram "Beighton Junction".
Overview Beighton Junction went through four distinct phases: Initial simplicity from 1849 to 1891 Sudden expansion from 1891 to 1907 Consolidation then decline from 1907 to the 1980s, then Return to simplicity since the 1980s.
Initial simplicity
The MSLR's "Beighton Branch" and the original Beighton Junction opened to passenger traffic on 12 February 1849. The branch and junction joined the MSLR's east–west main line to the Midland Railway's erstwhile North Midland Railway line from to which still runs south–north along the valley of the River Rother. The MS&LR's station opened at the same time.
The MS&LR line had been promoted by the Sheffield and Lincolnshire Junction Railway (S&LJ). The first sod was ceremonially cut at High Hazles (nowadays spelled High Hazels and better known as Darnall) in eastern Sheffield on 15 October 1846, to the customary celebrations. The S&LJ and other associated lines were amalgamated in 1847 to form the MS&LR.
The junction made it possible to run trains from Sheffield eastwards, then turn southwards. At the time the modern line directly south from Sheffield was some way from becoming a financial and engineering possibility. The Midland Railway (MR) allowed MS&L trains to run south two stops beyond Beighton Junction to Eckington where passengers had to change for Chesterfield and beyond.
This essentially local scheme continued for forty years. It was condemned to remain local in scope by the opening in 1870 of what was to become known as the "New Road" direct from Sheffield through Bradway Tunnel and . This "New Road" led to the Midland Line along the Rother Valley becoming known among railwaymen as the "Old Road." Some attempts were made to run through trains from the MS&L, notably to London, but these more often fell foul of railway politics than operating or financial difficulties. In essence, the MS&L was a provincial railway with ambitions but no cash, the Midland and the LNWR had the lines to the south and the whip hand.
Sudden expansion
The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway The MS&LR was extremely ambitious. On 11 July 1889 its "Derbyshire Lines" Bill was passed by the Lords and by the following January contracts were let for a new line to be built from Beighton to Chesterfield. On 7 February 1890 the first sod was cut at Beighton.
The "Derbyshire Lines" expansion had two overall aims: to break the Midland's stranglehold on the rapidly expanding coal traffic to and from the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire coalfield, and to gain access to wider, notably Nottingham and London, markets by joining with the GNR at Annesley, north of Nottingham.
Naturally, the Midland objected, both in parliament and elsewhere.
The "Derbyshire Lines" in question were: a new main line from the MS&L's Beighton Branch to the GNR at Annesley. This would provide an entirely MS&L West-South route. a new branch from Waleswood, on the MS&L main line east of the Rother, to join the new main line a little over a mile south of the new Beighton Junction, thereby providing an entirely MS&L East-South route, and a new branch leaving the new main line at Staveley to serve Chesterfield and, especially, the ambitious and expanding works in the Staveley area.
On 9 May 1890 Parliament granted the MS&L powers to extend the Chesterfield branch southwards to the new main line at Heath, thereby forming a loop.
The initial aim of opening in June 1891 proved over-optimistic, but openings came thick and fast:
December 1891: goods traffic to Staveley Works via the new Beighton Junction commenced, using contractors' locomotives. 1 June 1892: public passenger service from Sheffield (MS&L, later Victoria) via Beighton to Staveley Town, later Staveley Central. 1 June 1892: erstwhile passenger service via Beighton to Eckington (MR) ceased. 4 June 1892: public passenger service extended to Chesterfield (later Chesterfield Central). 24 October 1892: new main line south from Staveley to Annesley opened, allowing MS&L coal and goods trains to reach Nottingham, a key goal of the enterprise. 3 January 1893: passenger traffic started south from Staveley to 3 July 1893: passenger traffic through Chesterfield to started, completing the loop and enabling MS&L trains to travel to Nottingham both direct between Staveley and Heath, or round by the Chesterfield Loop, a situation which continued for almost seventy years. 17 July 1893: Waleswood Curve opened for goods traffic, giving the MS&L East to South access to the new main line. 1 November 1893: station, itself a replacement for an earlier station on the Midland's "Old Road", replaced with the third and final Beighton station. January 1894: Waleswood Curve opened to passenger traffic.Waleswood Curve: via kivetonwaleshistory
The gateway to this frenetic activity was the MS&L's new Beighton Junction. The Midland's ire must be understood not in the trivial loss of transfer passenger traffic at Eckington, but in the consequent opening of the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire coalfield to railway competition. From 1891 to 1894 no fewer than seventeen new colliery branches were opened by the MS&L off the lines catalogued above, most leading to pits already served by the Midland. One such was the Holbrook Colliery Branch which left the new southbound MS&L main line merely yards from their new Beighton Junction.
This new Beighton Junction proved to be the springboard for yet more ambition. Later in the 1890s the MS&L sets its sights on getting to London under its own steam and built the "London Extension" south from Annesley to London Marylebone. The MS&LR became the GCR and the London Extension became the Great Central Main Line. MS&L locals to Killamarsh, coals from Holbrook Colliery and crack expresses from Marylebone to Sheffield Victoria, all were made possible by the MS&LR's junction, the second at Beighton.
The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway In the 1880s a grandiose scheme was formulated to build a railway from "Coast to Coast", i.e. from near Warrington on the emerging Manchester Ship Canal (not actually on the coast, but near enough for sloganising purposes) to a wholly new port near Sutton-on-Sea in Lincolnshire. In November 1890 detailed plans for this new line - to be known as the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (LD&ECR) - were made public, they included a branch from Langwith to Beighton, aiming at the expanding heavy industry in Sheffield. Notice seeking to put a Bill before Parliament was given in the same month.
Effective groundwork had been done so that only 37 petitions objecting to the new line were tabled. Most of those from landowners were "successfully dealt with" (i.e. "bought out" or mitigated, so they were withdrawn) and those from the CLC, LNWR and GN&GEJR were subsequently withdrawn when they became satisfied that the proposed line was either neutral or advantageous to them. The GER went one step further, changing from opponents to supporters, as they saw that the line could give them access to Sheffield and to North Midlands coal.
This left two opponents, the MR and the MS&LR. The Midland's opposition was lukewarm, they saw both opportunities and threats: opportunities such as Beighton, where the LD&ECR's traffic would end in a floodplain on the outskirts of Sheffield and would need carrying further, potentially over Midland metals, and threats such as Southgate and Barlborough near Clowne where collieries which they served exclusively might be tapped by the new line.
The MS&L's opposition was by far the strongest, not least because the proposed line broadly paralleled their established main line from East to West and would potentially be a direct competitor. Their rumbustious leader, Watkin, described the proposed line as "one of the maddest schemes ever presented to Parliament." So little opposition, and that from a partial source, meant the Bill sailed through Parliament and received Royal assent on 5 August 1891, the biggest line authorised in a single session.
That was the easy bit. Investors prepared to back the scheme were thin on the ground and by the Autumn of 1891 the decision was taken to start building eastwards from Chesterfield to meet the GN&GEJR at Pyewipe Junction west of Lincoln and northwards from Langwith Junction towards Beighton, which would occasionally be referred to as the "Sheffield Branch" but much more widely as the Beighton Branch. As things turned out they were the only two stretches of line which would be built.
As late as 1896 the LD&ECR still had no means of getting into Sheffield and the Beighton Branch still looked set to end in a marsh next to the Rother. In that year a scheme was passed by Parliament permitting the building of the Sheffield District Railway (SDR) from a point on the LD&ECR's Beighton Branch near Barlborough to Attercliffe in Sheffield's northern industrial heartland. This route was both difficult and expensive at a time when the LD&ECR was having trouble financing its Chesterfield-Lincoln main line. The driving forces behind the SDR were Sheffield businessmen and the company was legally independent, but the LD&ECR saw it as a child of its own. Despite the lack of finances the Duke of Norfolk cut the first sod in Attercliffe in 1896.
The Byzantine railway politics of the period then threw up another surprise, the Midland Railway jumped off the fence and offered the LD&ECR and SDR another route into Sheffield. Instead of embarking from Barlborough off the Beighton Branch, the line could:
make an East-North junction with the Midland Railway's "Old Road" at Beighton, using LD&ECR metals already under construction use Midland metals to build a much shorter and cheaper version of the SDR westwards from Treeton, joining the Midland's Sheffield-Rotherham line south of use Midland metals southwards through build a short branch to the goods depot under construction in Attercliffe, and let passenger trains run beyond Attercliffe to the Midland's Pond Street station at .