Nottingham...in relative isolation

[ChrisC]

I had forgotten this one, which I think ran in 1983, 1984 and 1985, utilising the stock off the down overnight train from St Pancras. In 1985 the full working was:

0645 Derby-Leicester
0740 Leicester-Leeds
1227 Leeds-Sheffield
1710 Sheffield-Nottingham
2120 Nottingham-Sheffield
2352 Sheffield-St Pancras

Thanks for that. That’s the one I remember and used occasionally from Alfreton at just after 0900 and of course was booked to be loco hauled. I also sometimes used the 1710 return from Sheffield.

 

[Merle Haggard]

That tells its own story. Large numbers of (male) passengers waiting for ages because of what were actually often infrequent services and very poor connections.

For readers who may be unaware, for all intents and purposes there was no local/walk-in catchment at Trent. Basically interchange only.

I was trying to point out that Nottingham could be reached from St Pancras by means of trains to Derby or down the Erewash and wasn't limited to St P. - Nottingham services. When I was attending Loughborough I spent (perhaps too much!) time travelling around Derbys. and Notts. and my recollection is that the connections at Trent were quite good; but of course there was always something interesting going on to pass the time.

As well as the Gents' there was the (obviously, by then) abandoned refreshment room clearly once of similarly grand proportions. The ladies' room may have been of similar opulence for all I know. Plenty of distractions in the old days, and even when I used it, an enclosed warm waiting room for winter journeys. Having changed trains at bleak stations such as Salford Central and Smethwick Galton Bridge (the latter does have waiting rooms, but they always seem to be locked), which I think have similarly limited catchment areas but provide connections I wished they had the facilities of Trent...

 

[Helvellyn]

Indeed, it was the quickest route for a service calling at neither Nottingham nor Derby, and may still be despite improvements via Ambergate in the early 2000s. But if a train had to call at one or the other then going via Derby was always quicker, and as time went on it became more and more difficult to justify missing both.

Even if the Nottingham-Melton route was intact, I doubt it would have through London-Nottingham or London-Sheffield trains today other than perhaps one or two per day, as there isn't the demand or the capacity into London to run separate services that avoid Leicester. It would most likely be served by running the Norwich train that way and avoiding the busy ECML south of Grantham.

If it was intact I wonder if the old hourly St Pancras - Corby service could have run through to Nottingham given Oakham and Melton an hourly London service, as well as connections into Nottingham.

No one seems to have mentioned the once important Trent, closed as part of the 1968 resignalling, I think.

Grinding around the sharply curved Trent Station North Junction - Sawley Junction spur, memorable

The purpose was, by clever train planning, to provide a convenient Nottingham connection out of a Derby train, and v.v., not to mention an Erewash Valley providing connections to both. All cross-platform.

And with quite grand, though run down, facilities - including an enormous Gents'.

I don't know the lay of the land but I wonder if the station had survived and road links could have been built a 'Trent Parkway' might have been more use than East Midlands Parkway in allowing better connections.

 

[Western Sunset]

I think there was a through Barrow in Furness to Nottm train in the mid 80s; invariably hauled by a 47.

 

[Merle Haggard]

I don't know the lay of the land but I wonder if the station had survived and road links could have been built a 'Trent Parkway' might have been more use than East Midlands Parkway in allowing better connections.

That would have been a great idea. East Midlands Parkway self evidently had no road access either until it was built. Trent had plenty of open land around it, as well.

But in the late 1960s rail was considered to have no future, 'managed decline'.

 

[InTheEastMids]

Looking at a railway map Nottingham does appear to be very much at the end of a spur line and not very well connected to the rest of the network. However, I think in reality that’s far from the case, and I find Nottingham to be very well connected with direct trains to many major cities and just needing one change of trains to reach many others.

I think this is a very helpful answer. As it says, there's actually a lot of destinations directly accessible in most directions, especially with a single change. The diversity of these links can also lead to a better frequency than you might expect (e.g. Nottingham-Liverpool via either Sheffield or Stoke)

However, what Nottingham suffers from is that other than the London EMR services, everything else is a short and relatively slow inter-regional train.
The EMR service gets to London (126 miles) in about 1h 45 - average speed about 72 mph. Everything else (Brum, Crewe, Manchester, Leeds, Norwich etc) will be doing very well to average anything much over 40-45 mph. So Leeds, which at 82 miles is much closer than London, is in fact further away because it's also a 2h trundle, and at that point driving starts to feel easier as it's faster outside the rush hour, and will feel even quicker if either the start/finish points are away from the main stations.

This is not an issue that's unique to Nottingham, but I think it's a good example of what I think is a chicken and egg situation - in many cases the reason that our inter-regional services are often 2/3 car DMUs is because there hasn't been a sustained effort to make services fast enough to get people out of their cars.

 

[edwin_m]

If it was intact I wonder if the old hourly St Pancras - Corby service could have run through to Nottingham given Oakham and Melton an hourly London service, as well as connections into Nottingham.

With capacity and demand only justifying four intercity trains per hour out of St Pancras, that would be at the expense of Leicester and certainly a detriment to ridership and revenue.

I don't know the lay of the land but I wonder if the station had survived and road links could have been built a 'Trent Parkway' might have been more use than East Midlands Parkway in allowing better connections.

That would have been a great idea. East Midlands Parkway self evidently had no road access either until it was built. Trent had plenty of open land around it, as well.

Trent has terrible road access - urban roads only, with the nearest M1 junction on the wrong side of the Trent. The apparently empty land is flat and surrounds the confluence of the three largest rivers in the region, so remains empty for very good reasons. East Midlands Parkway is just off the A453 which had definitely moved to today's route in the 1980s.

 

[778]

Has there ever been a service from Kings Cross - Nottingham via Grantham? It looks like it is a shorter route than the MML and maybe a quicker journey depending on the stations it called at.

 

[Taunton]

I don't know the lay of the land but I wonder if the station had survived and road links could have been built a 'Trent Parkway' might have been more use than East Midlands Parkway in allowing better connections.

Contrary to some opinion, Trent did have a road to it, reached through an underpass from its island platform. In about 1965 we did a youthful trip to Toton depot, with passes, and lack of knowledge by the almost equally youthful leader led us to travel from Derby to Trent, the "nearest station" on the map. Finding this isolated, the one porter pointed us through the underpass where a BR minibus (never seen one before) was waiting on its regular shuttle to the shed. Talk about a chance happening! We all piled in and realised, as it rolled up through the streets of Long Eaton etc, how we could never have walked it.

Staff to and from Toton must have made up a good proportion of Trent's users when open.

 

[Harvester]

Has there ever been a service from Kings Cross - Nottingham via Grantham? It looks like it is a shorter route than the MML and maybe a quicker journey depending on the stations it called at.

IIRC there was once an infrequent service between Nottingham Victoria and Kings Cross, which was an extension of some Victoria to Grantham trains! Perhaps others could provide more details?

In the past there was often talk of running a limited Nottingham to Kings Cross and return service via Grantham using HSTs, but pathing difficulties were a major issue and nothing materialised.

 

[alistairlees]

I had forgotten this one, which I think ran in 1983, 1984 and 1985, utilising the stock off the down overnight train from St Pancras. In 1985 the full working was:

0645 Derby-Leicester
0740 Leicester-Leeds
1227 Leeds-Sheffield
1710 Sheffield-Nottingham
2120 Nottingham-Sheffield
2352 Sheffield-St Pancras

The last 12.27 Leeds - Sheffield (loco-hauled) was in May 1986

 

[Helvellyn]

If it was intact I wonder if the old hourly St Pancras - Corby service could have run through to Nottingham given Oakham and Melton an hourly London service, as well as connections into Nottingham.

With capacity and demand only justifying four intercity trains per hour out of St Pancras, that would be at the expense of Leicester and certainly a detriment to ridership and revenue.

The old Corby service was the one introduced by EMT that ran until electrification as a fifth hourly service, so given that it did carry a lot of fresh air at times my point was whether if the route from Melton to Nottingham had been open it could have been extended, notwithstanding what might have worked it.

Heck, if we had electrification past Corby even the current service could run through to Oakham and Melton once an hour by dividing at Kettering and continuing as a four car onward to Corby, etc.

 

[edwin_m]

The old Corby service was the one introduced by EMT that ran until electrification as a fifth hourly service, so given that it did carry a lot of fresh air at times my point was whether if the route from Melton to Nottingham had been open it could have been extended, notwithstanding what might have worked it.

Heck, if we had electrification past Corby even the current service could run through to Oakham and Melton once an hour by dividing at Kettering and continuing as a four car onward to Corby, etc.

That might be possible in the relevant parallel universe. But it doesn't offer much advantage over the existing London-Nottingham service, arguably the only one serving Nottingham that is relatively good in terms of speed and frequency. So it would be unlikely to generate much extra demand to justify the extra cost.

 

[Western Sunset]

IIRC there was once an infrequent service between Nottingham Victoria and Kings Cross, which was an extension of some Victoria to Grantham trains! Perhaps others could provide more details?

In the past there was often talk of running a limited Nottingham to Kings Cross and return service via Grantham using HSTs, but pathing difficulties were a major issue and nothing materialised.

There was one early morning through set of coaches from Nottm Vic - KX. Lasted until the late 50s if I recall.

 

[WesternLancer]

That tells its own story. Large numbers of (male) passengers waiting for ages because of what were actually often infrequent services and very poor connections.

For readers who may be unaware, for all intents and purposes there was no local/walk-in catchment at Trent. Basically interchange only.

As I've heard it said locally in the style of the Lords Prayer: "Lead us not into Trent Station...."

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Sep 2023 ==

I assume it's going back beyond many of the interesting examples in this thread - but did what I think was the LNWR service to/from Nottingham London Road Low Level Station (now the Virgin Active Gym) provide for services to other destinations from Nottingham not mentioned above?

I've not looked at any old timetables or route maps when posing this question, but presume there were some services that were not simply just to local destinations. I imagine I'd be talking about pre 1950s, if not way before then even.

 

[Merle Haggard]

I assume it's going back beyond many of the interesting examples in this thread - but did what I think was the LNWR service to/from Nottingham London Road Low Level Station (now the Virgin Active Gym) provide for services to other destinations from Nottingham not mentioned above?

The L.N.W.R. (and the other railways for all I know) provided through coaches on what now seems to be am amazing scale; the Railways Archive is in the process of posting on line Accident Reports and the older ones provide, by chance, insights into the then-everyday workings that have long disappeared and these include through coach working when describing train formations. - and, as an aside, also showing how quickly Normal Working was Resumed then!

For instance, the accident at Melton on the Joint Line on 25/7/82 involving a Nottingham - Northampton train refers to it attaching two through coaches and a brake van at Stathern. The coaches concerned were Scarborough to Northampton and Scarborough to Leamington ones, and had presumably arrived at Scalby via the G.N. and Newark,

I've the Marshalling Circular and Train Working Diagram books for a particular summer in L.M.S. days, and these show that the trains commonly known as the "Sunny South Express" (there were two) still had a large number of through coaches attached and detached en route, and coaches to/from Scarborough were still attached/detached at Northampton. The Joint Line was clearly not just regarded as a local branch.

On the subject of the Joint Line, rather than Nottingham, it was interesting how the G.N. tried to keep revenue 'in house'. Trains from Leicester to the Norfolk resorts were routed G.N. to Marehay then Northwards over the Joint, then onto the G.N. circling around to pick up the G.N. & G.E. and then onto the M. & G.N. Presumably half the revenue was better than none even though the routing was circuitous (particular compared to the rival route via Peterborough) and co-ordinating loco and crew diagramming must have been stressful!

Getting back to Nottingham I think it very likely that there were through Euston coaches from Nottingham via Northampton. This might have been a shorter (in distance terms) than the Midland routes bur presumably the overwhelming Midland influence in the early L.M.S. (or Greater Midland Railway, as they regarded it) soon saw off the former rival route.

 

[Magdalia]

There was one early morning through set of coaches from Nottm Vic - KX. Lasted until the late 50s if I recall.

Your recall is good! There was a morning Grantham-Kings Cross train that had through carriages from Nottingham Victoria until the end of the summer 1959 timetable, but I can't find a corresponding down working.

Trains from Leicester to the Norfolk resorts were routed G.N. to Marehay then Northwards over the Joint, then onto the G.N. circling around to pick up the G.N. & G.E. and then onto the M. & G.N.

I'm puzzled by this, where is Marehay please?

My 1958 timetable is the last summer of the M&GN when I can't find an "ex GN" Leicester-Yarmouth train, only trains from Belgrave Road are to Skegness and Mablethorpe. There was a Derby Friargate-Yarmouth which went via Nottingham Victoria and Sleaford but it then did the GN&GE line to March then onto the GE to Yarmouth Vauxhall.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Your recall is good! There was a morning Grantham-Kings Cross train that had through carriages from Nottingham Victoria until the end of the summer 1959 timetable, but I can't find a corresponding down working.


I'm puzzled by this, where is Marehay please?

My 1958 timetable is the last summer of the M&GN when I can't find an "ex GN" Leicester-Yarmouth train, only trains from Belgrave Road are to Skegness and Mablethorpe. There was a Derby Friargate-Yarmouth which went via Nottingham Victoria and Sleaford but it then did the GN&GE line to March then onto the GE to Yarmouth Vauxhall.

Leicester (later Belgrave Road) was on a (G.N.) branch which joined the G.N. & L.N.W. Joint line at a triangular junctions, so that trains could continue either North or South. The three junctions were called Marehay East, South and North. Like many railway junction locations it was not near a settlement - there was no village called Marehay. Might have been just a field name - bit like John O'Gaunt, which was the name of the nearest clump of trees apparently.

My reference to the circuitous route was in pre-group days. I guess that, once the G.E. and G.N. were both part of the L.N.E.R., there was no need for parochial routing.

 

[Western Sunset]

Marehay was just south of Ripley on the MR branch from Little Eaton through Denby.

Marefield was the series of junctions where the GN branch from L'ter Belgrave Rd joined the GN/LNW Joint.

 

[70014IronDuke]

If it was intact I wonder if the old hourly St Pancras - Corby service could have run through to Nottingham given Oakham and Melton an hourly London service, as well as connections into Nottingham.

Even with today's travel demands, I don't know how much traffic Oakham and Melton Mowbray would generate, even with an hourly fast-ish service. I can well see why, in the late 60s, the route was closed to passengers - BR could close Melton to Nottingham and Manton - Glendon South could be made goods only, and Melton and Oakham passengers could still access London expresses with just one change.

I am a bit surprised BR closed Corby though, even if at the time it didn't produce much traffic. I suppose the mantra was 'save costs, save costs' and that was what held sway. I wonder if it would have closed it it had been Gerry Fiennes' patch at the time?

What the 'back road' needed to have been viable is a nice city of 300,000 population at somewhere like Old Dalby, a place like Leicester that could not be ignored.

 

[35B]

Even with today's travel demands, I don't know how much traffic Oakham and Melton Mowbray would generate, even with an hourly fast-ish service. I can well see why, in the late 60s, the route was closed to passengers - BR could close Melton to Nottingham and Manton - Glendon South could be made goods only, and Melton and Oakham passengers could still access London expresses with just one change.

I am a bit surprised BR closed Corby though, even if at the time it didn't produce much traffic. I suppose the mantra was 'save costs, save costs' and that was what held sway. I wonder if it would have closed it it had been Gerry Fiennes' patch at the time?

What the 'back road' needed to have been viable is a nice city of 300,000 population at somewhere like Old Dalby, a place like Leicester that could not be ignored.

Places like Melton and Oakham aren't large, either - their importance is as hubs for their areas more than their size in itself. As such, a lot of the potential demand (certainly for long distance travel) can as easily be met by driving to Leicester/Peterborough/Market Harborough/Grantham/Loughborough.

With consolidation of routes, and no local traffic to speak of (Upper Broughton on the Old Dalby line was one of the first stations closed by BR, in May 1948), it's easy to see why this didn't make the cut as a through route - especially with the reduction in wagonload coal traffic of the 1960s and 1970s.

 

[WesternLancer]

The L.N.W.R. (and the other railways for all I know) provided through coaches on what now seems to be am amazing scale; the Railways Archive is in the process of posting on line Accident Reports and the older ones provide, by chance, insights into the then-everyday workings that have long disappeared and these include through coach working when describing train formations. - and, as an aside, also showing how quickly Normal Working was Resumed then!

For instance, the accident at Melton on the Joint Line on 25/7/82 involving a Nottingham - Northampton train refers to it attaching two through coaches and a brake van at Stathern. The coaches concerned were Scarborough to Northampton and Scarborough to Leamington ones, and had presumably arrived at Scalby via the G.N. and Newark,

I've the Marshalling Circular and Train Working Diagram books for a particular summer in L.M.S. days, and these show that the trains commonly known as the "Sunny South Express" (there were two) still had a large number of through coaches attached and detached en route, and coaches to/from Scarborough were still attached/detached at Northampton. The Joint Line was clearly not just regarded as a local branch.

On the subject of the Joint Line, rather than Nottingham, it was interesting how the G.N. tried to keep revenue 'in house'. Trains from Leicester to the Norfolk resorts were routed G.N. to Marehay then Northwards over the Joint, then onto the G.N. circling around to pick up the G.N. & G.E. and then onto the M. & G.N. Presumably half the revenue was better than none even though the routing was circuitous (particular compared to the rival route via Peterborough) and co-ordinating loco and crew diagramming must have been stressful!

Getting back to Nottingham I think it very likely that there were through Euston coaches from Nottingham via Northampton. This might have been a shorter (in distance terms) than the Midland routes bur presumably the overwhelming Midland influence in the early L.M.S. (or Greater Midland Railway, as they regarded it) soon saw off the former rival route.

Thanks Merle - excellent answer to my question and fascinating stuff - certainly would have opened up travel opportunities with through carriages that I had not considered. I did wonder if Euston might have been the destination for something via that route!

I suppose that when driving was not an option for most people, and even for those that could drive / had a vehicle, the speed was so slow that even circuitous workings with time to attach/detach through carriages meant that rail journey time was still faster than any other viable option. Probably stayed that way for much long distance travel until M Way construction in the 'modern era'.

 

[thedbdiboy]

The Nottingham - Glasgow stopped running via the S&C after the 1981-82 timetable. For 1982-83 it departed Nottingham at 09:32 and ran to Manchester Victoria and then via Parkside Jn to Wigan North Western where the diesel was changed for an electric. An Edinburgh portion was split at Carstairs. I *think* the southbound working ran from Preston to Manchester via Bolton, but my memory is a bit hazy about that.

Yes, that was the year the S&C went down to two trains a day each way Carlisle - Leeds calling at Appleby & Settle, 2nd class only, loco hauled compartment Mk1s, as a precursor to the closure notice. It may have been intended as a sulky service but my Peak-hauled Mk1 trip, taken at the age of 14, was (and is) a superb memory

 

[30907]

I am a bit surprised BR closed Corby though, even if at the time it didn't produce much traffic. I suppose the mantra was 'save costs, save costs' and that was what held sway. I wonder if it would have closed it it had been Gerry Fiennes' patch at the time?

Corby would have been a fairly self-contained town back in the days of steel - rather like the mill towns further north - the one significant flow would have been to/from Scotland; in the 1958 t/t this warranted a stop in a Friday night overnight to Glasgow but no return working. I believe the coaches cornered the market

 

[Halwynd]

Yes, that was the year the S&C went down to two trains a day each way Carlisle - Leeds calling at Appleby & Settle, 2nd class only, loco hauled compartment Mk1s, as a precursor to the closure notice. It may have been intended as a sulky service but my Peak-hauled Mk1 trip, taken at the age of 14, was (and is) a superb memory

I never managed to have a Peak over the S&C unfortunately, so I envy you!

I can remember the first and only year of the 'via Wigan' service being booked for a 47, but I did once see a Peak coming off on a snowy winters day. Always air-con MkII stock.

The electric taking over was always an 87, at least when I saw the train, and I think its previous working was a freightliner/container service It worked light engine to Wigan, stabling in Platform 1 for a while whilst awaiting arrival of the train, and I still have happy memories of visiting the local wallpaper supplies shop for rolls of paper suitable for taking crayon rubbings of their nameplates!

The following year - 1983 - I believe it became The European, running via Bolton.

 

[Harvester]

I can remember the first and only year of the 'via Wigan' service being booked for a 47, but I did once see a Peak coming off on a snowy winters day. Always air-con MkII stock.

The electric taking over was always an 87, at least when I saw the train, and I think its previous working was a freightliner/container service It worked light engine to Wigan, stabling in Platform 1 for a while whilst awaiting arrival of the train, and I still have happy memories of visiting the local wallpaper supplies shop for rolls of paper suitable for taking crayon rubbings of their nameplates!

The following year - 1983 - I believe it became The European, running via Bolton.

Travelled on it once via Wigan in September 1982. It ran Chesterfield to Sheffield via Rotherwood and Darnall, which avoided the loco having to run round at Sheffied. Our 47 (47484) was exchanged at Wigan for a 86 that day. I imagine the ‘Isambard Kingdom Brunel‘ plates on the 47 would have been a nice target for crayon rubbing!

 

[Halwynd]

Travelled on it once via Wigan in September 1982. It ran Chesterfield to Sheffield via Rotherwood and Darnall, which avoided the loco having to run round at Sheffied. Our 47 (47484) was exchanged at Wigan for a 86 that day. I imagine the ‘Isambard Kingdom Brunel‘ plates on the 47 would have been a nice target for crayon rubbing!

Thanks for that - and for confirming that 86s worked the train too. It was the type of train you'd expect to see an 86.

If there were any enthusiasts at the station that day, a Western Region 'namer' would have caused a bit of excitement and a rubbing would have been highly desireable!

 

[route101]

My journeys to Glasgow have been variously changing at Grantham/Edinburgh, Newark (walk between stations)/Edinburgh, Manchester, Manchester/Preston, and Warrington (walk between stations). Crewe didn't feature much, but this was before the direct trains came back. I avoid the most obvious route via Sheffield/Edinburgh because I don't want to be on a Voyager for that long. At least computerised journey planners make it somewhat easier to find the best option! I once found out just before starting out towards Newark that the wires were down on the ECML, and had my Advance ticket accepted via Preston instead - for which the total track shared with my original itinerary was half the platform length at Nottingham.

Few years back I travelled from Nottingham to Glasgow and changed at Stockport. Was only possible because of diversion via Manchester but an easy connection to make.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Marehay was just south of Ripley on the MR branch from Little Eaton through Denby.

Marefield was the series of junctions where the GN branch from L'ter Belgrave Rd joined the GN/LNW Joint.

Thanks for the correction - made the mistake of relying on memory without checking. But in my defence it was all a long time ago.

I once met a farmer who lived near John O'Gaunt station (also on the line) and he claimed that a wagon consigned there had disappeared, and was finally tracked down in the Far North of Scotland due to a similar confusion. But possibly a tall tale - John O'Groats never had a railway.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Sep 2023 ==

Corby would have been a fairly self-contained town back in the days of steel - rather like the mill towns further north - the one significant flow would have been to/from Scotland; in the 1958 t/t this warranted a stop in a Friday night overnight to Glasgow but no return working. I believe the coaches cornered the market

Back in steam days we discovered that Barton operated a Corby - Glasgow coach on Friday nights for £2. The opportunity to bash the lowlands sheds over the weekend before taking up a Freedom of Scotland on the Monday appealed, so we booked. Arriving at Corby bus station in plenty of time we found the queue already snaked out of the bus station and along the road outside - there were certainly more than 6 coaches on the departure as ones were departing as they loaded.

Presumably someone will say that it was not cost-effective for B.R. to run 'dated' services one day a week but Barton, at that time privately owned, thought it worthwhile...

The first operator on then route was Thistle Express after the war.

 

[Grumpy]

Presumably someone will say that it was not cost-effective for B.R. to run 'dated' services one day a week but Barton, at that time privately owned, thought it worthwhile...

And something close to that model seems to work for the likes of Ryanair and Jet2