Mansfield and Pinxton Railway

Opening and early operation

The line was opened on 13 April 1819, when "the first load of coals was brought in to the Company's wharf [at Mansfield]... the coal was unloaded and taken to the market place where it was heaped up and set on fire." This was evidently a major event in the locality: crowds met the incoming train at the five-arch bridge "where they met ten waggons laden with coal from the Pinxton colliery... the assemblage amounted to some thousands... Having arrived at the market-place about three o'clock, which, not withstanding the heavy rain falling at the time was thronged with people, the band struck up "God Save the King"... Nearly three hundred of the workmen who had been employed during the last three months on the road, then returned to partake of a dinner, provided for them by the proprietors, at different public houses in the town."

The Mansfield terminal was Portland Wharf, alongside White Bear Lane. Bullocks were used as the motive power at first, and later horses were substituted. The railway was to be operated as a toll road: tonnage rates were set; owners of land adjacent to the line were to establish wharfs (goods sidings) and the company could step in if they failed to do so.

The line was double track, 8+1⁄4 miles long. From Mansfield to the summit level there was a rise of 89 ft; it then fell 181 feet to the Pinxton terminal. The summit was a little under half way from Mansfield. The track consisted of fish-bellied cast iron edge rails; the rails used a form of scarfed joints on stone block sleepers. The selection of edge rails was not without controversy: plate rails (where the wagon wheels are plain and the plate provides the flange for containment) have the advantage that the wagons can leave the track and be manoeuvred on an ordinary flat surface. Losing that advantage was only justified if edge rails enabled heavier loads to be hauled by a horse; there seemed to be a lack of objective evidence on that point.

The track gauge was 4 ft 4+1⁄2 in. The Board of Trade Inspecting Officer visited on 25 September 1849, and his report mistakenly refers to a gauge of 4 ft 4 in.

The Midland Railway was formed in May 1844; it acquired the rights to the Erewash Valley Railway; it opened that line from Long Eaton Junction to Codnor Park on 6 September 1847. The Midland Railway saw the importance of connecting to Mansfield, but two new companies were being promoted: the Boston, Newark & Sheffield Railway was to pass through Southwell and Mansfield, while the Nottingham, Mansfield & Midlands Junction Railway would incorporate the Mansfield & Pinxton line. These two organisations were so confident about their prospects that they jointly purchased the Mansfield & Pinxton company the following year. The Midland Railway had decided to build a line from Nottingham to Mansfield, using part of the Pinxton Railway, and Parliament favoured their plans, and an act of Parliament for the Nottingham to Mansfield railway (initially connecting with the Mansfield & Pinxton north of Kirkby in Ashfield) was passed as the Midland Railway (Nottingham and Mansfield) Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. clxiii) on 16 July 1846.

The Midland Railway got the Midland Railway (Mansfield and Pinxton Branch) Act 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c. cxci) on 9 July 1847. This sanctioned the acquisition of the tramway and its incorporation in a line between Codnor Park and Mansfield. Ownership of the Pinxton line remained a problem. The issue was finally resolved on 15 February 1848, when the Railway Commissioners issued a certificate, by the authority of which the Mansfield & Pinxton Railway was amalgamated with the Midland and immediately dissolved. The purchase of the Mansfield and Pinxton Tramway cost £21,066 13s. 4d.; Stretton considered that a comparatively small sum.