Trent railway station
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Trent railway station was situated near Long Eaton in Derbyshire at the junction of the Midland Railway line from London to Derby and Nottingham. It was unusual in that it did not serve any community, being simply an interchange.
The complex network of tracks in this area is popularly known as Trent Junction, though strictly this was the junction of the Derby and the Leicester line at the south of the triangular layout, recently renamed Trent South. It was built in 1839 by the Midland Counties Railway which linked Derby and Nottingham with Leicester and thence to London.
Between 1847 and 1862, the Midland built a line from Chesterfield (now known as the Erewash Valley Line). This had a curve to join the northbound line towards Nottingham, but crossed the Derby-Nottingham curve on the level at Platt's Crossing to meet the southbound line.
At this time passengers from Nottingham travelled to Derby before heading for London, an eighteen mile round trip. Trent Station was built in 1862 as an island platform, in typical "Midland Gothic" style, on the Nottingham-Leicester arm. Through its century long existence it barely changed - even retaining the gas lighting.
Platt's Crossing was removed and the Derby line brought round in a sharp curve to enter the station from the north. This curve was so tight that it was said that passengers in the leading coaches could see the tail of their own train. At the same time a curve was built from the south of the station on to the Derby line at what was known as Sheet Stores junction.
In 1869 a further line was built from Sawley Junction to Stenson which allowed trains for the West Midlands to bypass Derby.
Goods traffic increased to such an extent that, in 1893, the quadruple track was extended from Radcliffe to Trent through a second Red Hill Tunnel and, with the growth of the sidings at Toton, the goods line was taken at high level over the Nottingham line in 1901.
Through the early part of the Twentieth century, the station was an important changing point for a variety of local services. In addition the Erewash Valley was used by expresses from London to Leeds and the north, such as the Thames-Clyde Express, which first ran as a named train in 1927.
Some of the Nottingham expresses instead used the line through Melton Mowbray and Corby, which opened to Kettering in 1880. Derby continued to handle the services from London to Manchester along what is now the Derwent Valley Line, some of which bypassed Trent due the difficulty of negotiating the North Curve.
The station was demolished in 1967 and the North Curve removed, in spite of much local opposition. The name Trent remains however, perpetuated on the Power Signalbox built in 1969.
[edit] References
- Higginson, M, (1989) The Midland Counties Railway: A Pictorial Survey, Derby: Midland Railway Trust.
- Kingscott, G., (in print) Last Train from Trent Station
