Park Drain railway station

The Great Northern Railway had been attempting to build a connecting line between Gainsborough and Doncaster since 1847, but it was not until they obtained an Act of Parliament on 25 July 1864 that they were at last empowered to do so.[3] Some three years later, the line opened, for freight on 1 July 1867, and for passengers on 15 July. In order to keep it virtually level, with a maximum gradient of 1 in 300, some large earthworks had been constructed. Intermediate stations were initially at Beckingham, Walkeringham, Misterton, Haxey, and Finningley.[4] Park Drain was not considered, as there was no obvious population for it to serve. The site was located by a level crossing on the no-through road running from Idle Stop, a remote location on the north bank of the River Idle, to the Haxey to Blaxton Road. The tracks ran along the south bank of a Warping Drain, which was joined by the Snow Sewer to the east of the site. The line here ran in an east to west direction, and by 1886 there was a trailing siding to the east of the crossing, on the south side of the tracks, and another to the west on the north side of the tracks. There were shorter sidings on the south side to the west of the crossing. The 1886 map labels the site Park Drain Sidings, and makes no mention of the station.[5]

A passenger station opened on 2 March 1896,[1] and the 1899 map shows two platforms to the east of the level crossing. Two buildings had appeared just to the north, on the other side of the Warping Drain to the station. The station and the buildings were only just in Nottinghamshire, as the county border with Lincolnshire ran diagonally across the countryside, crossing the railway about half way along the eastern siding.[6] The building nearest the road was the Park Drain Hotel, which was completed in 1899 by George Dunston, a local colliery proprietor and mining engineer. He had obtained a licence to serve alcohol in 1897, before construction had begun, which was granted on the basis that Park Drain would soon be the centre of an extensive coal mining operation.[7] Coal had first been discovered in the vicinity when exploratory drilling had taken place at Idle Stop in 1893. Two seams were found, at depths of 3,142 feet (958 m) and 3,185 feet (971 m),[8] A newspaper report of a dinner held by Dunston at the hotel in 1899 noted that the station served the people of Westwoodside, but that the hotel stood in a remote location, with only some railway men's cottages and a signal box nearby. It is unclear whether the station was in full operation at that time, since Dunston, in a speech which outlined plans for a mine and a large village or small town near the hotel, also mentioned that a number of his friends were missing from the dinner because the railway company would not stop the train on which they were travelling at Park Drain.[9] The scheme to open a mine foundered when the First World War began, and there were also issues with drainage. Despite its isolated location, the hotel flourished until the 1990s, when it closed, and in 2003 the building was re-used as offices.[10]

In 1925 a signal box was constructed at the site, using a Great Northern Railway design dating from 1907. It contained a Saxby & Farmer lever frame, which was clearly second-hand, as it was much older than the building. The box ceased to be used on 5 December 1977.[11]

Doncaster–Lincoln line
Doncaster Bessacarr Halt Finningley Park Drain Axholme Joint Railway to Goole Haxey Junction Haxey and Epworth River Idle Chesterfield Canal Misterton to Stockwith Goods Misterton Petroleum storage depot Walkeringham Beckingham Sheffield–Lincoln line to Sheffield West Trent Junction River Trent East Trent Junction Brigg Branch to Cleethorpes Gainsborough Lea Road Lea Stow Park Leverton Branch Saxilby LD&ECR Skellingthorpe Nottingham–Lincoln line Lincoln Sheffield–Lincoln line to Cleethorpes Peterborough–Lincoln line