railroad.wikisort.org - Station

Widmerpool was a railway station serving Widmerpool in the English county of Nottinghamshire. It was situated on the Nottingham direct line of the Midland Railway between London and Nottingham via Corby.

Widmerpool
Surviving down platform waiting room in 2006.
General information
Location	Widmerpool, Rushcliffe England
Platforms	2[1]
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	Midland Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway London Midland Region of British Railways
Key dates
2 February 1880[2]	Station opens
28 February 1949	Closed to passengers
1 March 1965[3]	Closed to goods

History

The station was opened for goods (1 Nov 1879) [1] & passengers (2 February 1880) [1] by the Midland Railway. The station was designed by the Midland Railway company architect John Holloway Sanders.[4]

It was on its cut-off line from Melton Mowbray to Nottingham, which had opened the previous year to allow the railway company's expresses between London and the North to avoid reversal at Nottingham. It also improved access to and from the iron-ore fields in Leicestershire and Rutland.

Local traffic was always minimal, a situation not helped by the station being situated one and a half miles from the village of its name, and it closed to passengers as early as 1949.[5]

According to the Official Handbook of Stations the following classes of traffic were being handled at this station in 1956: G, P†, F, L, H, C and there was a 1-ton 10 cwt crane.[6]

Stationmasters

Preceding station		Disused railways		Following station
Plumtree		Midland Railway Nottingham direct line of the Midland Railway		Upper Broughton

Present day

Following the closure of the line as a through-route in 1968, the track between Melton Mowbray and Edwalton was converted for use as the Old Dalby Test Track. This was used initially for the Advanced Passenger Train project and, more recently, Class 390 Pendolino units.[12] It is currently used for testing London Underground 'S Stock' trains.

The station's Up platform remains in existence, as does the Down platform waiting room although the platform itself was removed during electrification work in 2000. The main station building was converted into a pub and restaurant c1966 before the line closed. It was originally called the Schooner Inn and later the Pullman Inn. Following closure of the business, Network Rail purchased the building and surrounding land in order to secure access to the test track infrastructure. The building was unused from 2016 to 2022.[13]

The buildings were demolished in August 2022. [14]

The timber goods shed survived until electrification in 2000. Just to the north of the station site lies Stanton Tunnel, 1,330 yards (1,220 m) long.

References

External links

• Pictures of Widmerpool station over the years
• Pictures of trains at Widmerpool station
• Widmerpool station on navigable 1946 O.S. map

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