The imminent re-opening of a station – more than 50 years after closure – spurs Godfrey Holmes to examine the history of a railway link crucial to the development of some of the region’s biggest industrial enterprises.
THE Midland Counties Railway originally went ahead without an Erewash Valley Line. That deficit was remedied between 1844 and 1862 with a new railway following the River Erewash part of the way between Trent Junction and Chesterfield; built principally to carry coal, pipes, aggregates and general freight, also to serve four vast industrial enterprises: George Stephenson’s Clay Cross Works, Stanton Ironworks (subsumed into Stanton & Staveley), the mighty Butterley Company and also Codnor Park…