Private company

Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway

Joint railway company

The Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway was a British railway line, almost entirely within Leicestershire. Authorised by the same act of Parliament, the Great Northern Railway Leicester Branch was built, branching from the Joint Line; on the same basis the Newark to Bottesford Line was built. The lines opened progressively between 1879 and 1883.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

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The Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway was a British railway line, almost entirely within Leicestershire. Authorised by the same act of Parliament, the Great Northern Railway Leicester Branch was built, branching from the Joint Line; on the same basis the Newark to Bottesford Line was built. The lines opened progressively between 1879 and 1883. The dominant traffic was iron ore, and the agricultural produce of the area served also generated considerable business. The passenger usage was never heavy, although some unusual through services were attempted at first.2

Products and brands

Train services

The Great Northern Railway had admitted the LNWR to the joint scheme to minimise its own exposure; in fact it had let the LNWR into the area the GNR had hoped to control, and the LNWR gained much from the fact. The passenger business was not commercially significant; freight, particularly originating and through mineral traffic, was the dominant element.

Leleux says:

The line was an important goods route, while also contributing much local traffic. The LNWR was able to tap the East Midlands coalfield, and ran seven daily coal trains to Willesden, with seven other freight trains to the South Midlands. There were regular mixed freights from Camden to Doncaster, including a wool train going on to Bradford. Stone trains ran from Northamptonshire to Scunthorpe. Until 1939, a hundred trains a day used the line, but these were reduced after nationalisation, until by 1960 they were being rationalised on to other routes. Local traffic was mainly agricultural: milk traffic was centred on John o' Gaunt, which sent up to four tanks daily to London... Cattle traffic was such that a passenger train might pick up sixteen cattle trucks en route... Ironstone, though, was most important...

Before World War I there were about a dozen passenger trains between John o' Gaunt and Stathern; half of them worked between Grantham and Leicester and half between Northampton and Nottingham. One of the latter was an express; in addition three trains a day ran between Leicester Belgrave Road and Peterborough, via the Lowesby, Medbourne and Longville curves, but this service was discontinued in 1916.

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The LNWR's main contribution to the passenger train mileage over the joint line was a Northampton - Nottingham service, which included one through working from and to London Euston. It also provided some peak summer workings to east coast destinations via Newark, supplementing the regular GNR services to Newark, Grantham, and Peterborough. Some bizarre services were provided at first, such as that by the LNWR from Leamington to Scarborough in July 1883, but these were short-lived too, and with the opening of the Leicester branch a pattern of workings which was to become standard began to emerge. Colwick LNWR depot provided most of the motive power required for the LNWR services.

The GNR based its passenger operations on Leicester Belgrave Road station, where for some years there were daily departures for Grantham, Newark and Peterborough. The last of these three services was short lived however. It had commenced on 2 July 1883 with four trains in each direction, over the 50-mile route via Tilton, Medbourne, Seaton and Wansford; it somehow managed to avoid all settlements other than small villages and in 1916 the two surviving Peterborough trains were withdrawn as a wartime economy measure. This brought about the closure of Medbourne station, which was later burnt down, and also deprived the equally obscure GNR service to Stamford of its "main-line" connections at Wansford. Neither of these considerations mattered a great deal though, for this particular attempt to compete with the Midland Railway had failed.

Of the other two services from Belgrave Road, that to Grantham was the most successful. In 1904 there were five trains out of Leicester and six return workings daily as well as a modest commuter service of one train a day to and from Lowesby. The small three-road engine shed at Leicester, which survived until 11 June 1955, provided locomotives for both freight and passenger workings. In pre-grouping years these were just as interesting as those used on the Joint Line by the LNWR; Stirling and Ivatt single-wheelers, Ivatt Atlantics and assorted 2-4-0s, 0-4-2s and 4-4-0s have all worked on the line.

As far as passenger traffic was concerned, neither the joint line nor the Leicester branch paid their way. Most customers travelled between towns which were linked by alternative services of greater frequency or convenience, and even receipts at Leicester Belgrave Road and Melton Mowbray North were pathetically meagre. Towards the end it was not uncommon for local trains to complete their journeys without having carried a single passenger.

There was a spur between the Joint Line and the Midland Railway at Melton Mowbray, but it was removed in 1901. The Longville curve was severed in 1929, but reinstated in 1947 as a route from brickworks traffic.

It was most appropriate that both the first and last public passenger trains from Belgrave Road were bound for the Lincolnshire coast. On 2 October 1882 an excursion left Leicester for Skegness and for the next eighty years the terminus was known to many thousands of Leicester holidaymakers as the station for the sea. Though insignificant when compared with the amount of traffic to Skegness, Mablethorpe and Sutton on Sea, other special workings over the east Leicestershire lines were not without interest. Waltham Fair and Croxton Park race meetings saw passenger coaches being drawn over the Waltham mineral line, agricultural specials ran to East Anglia, and trains even ran to the annual Hallaton bottle-kicking contest.

Location list

Main line

Newark (junction);

Cotham; opened 14 April 1879; closed 2 April 1917; reopened 1 April 1919; closed 11 September 1939;

Bottesford North Junction;

Bottesford South Junction;

Bottesford New; opened 15 December 1879; renamed Bottesford South 1880; closed 1 May 1882;

Redmile; opened 15 December 1879; closed 15 January 1951; reopened 19 March 1951; closed 7 December 1953; occasional use 1984 to 1988;

Stathern Junction; convergence of Saxondale Junction line;

Stathern; opened 1 December 1879; renamed Harby and Stathern 1879; closed 7 December 1953;

Long Clawson; opened 1 September 1879; renamed Long Clawson and Hose 1884; closed 7 December 1953;

Scalford; opened 1 September 1879; closed 7 December 1953; junction to Waltham branch;

Melton Mowbray; opened 1 September 1879; closed 7 December 1953; later summer Saturday and Sunday use to 9 September 1962;

Sysonby Junction;

Great Dalby; opened 15 December 1879; closed 7 December 1953;

Burrow and Twyford; opened 15 December 1879; renamed John o' Gaunt 1883; closed 7 December 1953; workmen's trains continued to 29 April 1957;

Marefield Junction North;

Marefield Junction South;

Tilton; opened 15 December 1879; closed 7 December 1953;

East Norton; opened 15 December 1879; closed 17 December 1953; workmen to 20 May 1957;

Hallaton; opened 15 December 1879; closed 7 December 1953; workmen's trains to 20 May 1957;

Hallaton Junction;

Medbourne; opened 2 July 1883; closed 1 April 1916;

Drayton Junction; on LNWR line.

Saxondale line

Saxondale Junction;

Bingham Road; opened 1 September 1879; closed 2 July 1951;

Barnstone; opened 1 September 1879; closed 7 December 1953;

Stathern Junction; (above).

Medbourne West Loop

Hallaton Junction; (above);

Welham Junction (on LNWR Rugby and Stamford line towards Market Harborough).

Leicester branch

Leicester Belgrave Road; opened 2 October 1882; closed to public 7 December 1953; but one train each way daily for workmen until 29 April 1957; even then summer Saturday use to Skegness continued to 9 September 1962;

Humberstone Road Junction; connection from Midland Main Line;

Humberstone; opened 1 January 1883; closed 7 December 1953; workmen to 29 April 1957 and summer Saturday and Sunday use to 9 September 1962;

Thurnby & Scraptoft; opened 1 January 1883; closed 7 December 1953; one train each way for workmen until 29 April 1957; summer sats and suns to 9 September 1962;

Ingersby; opened 1 January 1883; renamed Ingarsby 1939; closed 7 December 1953; workmen to 29 April 1957;

Lowesby; opened 1 January 1883; renamed Lowesby 1916; closed 7 December 1953; workmen to 29 April 1957; excursions later;

Marefield Junction West;

Marefield Junction South and North (above).

From Wikipedia’s article on Great Northern and London and North Western Joint Railway, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Subsidiaries and ownership

Owners

From Wikidata.1

Sources

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