10th November 2020 · ‘Railways in and around Chesterfield’

Presenter: Glynn Waite

We held our second Zoom meeting on Tuesday, 10 November with David Jackman as technical support and with 33 participants. We welcomed Glynn Waite who, despite suffering from MDS, gave an exhaustive and interesting talk on Railways in and around Chesterfield.

Glynn started with the Midland Railway in Chesterfield before covering the MS & L Rly/GCR/LD and East Coast Railway (which failed to leave the Dukeries and reached neither Lancashire nor the East Coast!) and a host of branches serving local industries and pits. Using a vast array of historical photos/tickets and hand bills, every station’s opening and closing dates and in many cases renaming was covered. We saw all three Killamarsh stations serving at that time, the small village – Killamarsh West on former Midland Railway “Old Road” from Chesterfield to Rotherham Masborough closed 1954 – Upperthorpe & Killamarsh on the former LD & ECR Beighton Branch closed 1930 and Killamarsh Central MS & LR (GCR) closed 1963.

Also of particular interest, we saw Clay Cross engine shed and works, replaced by Hasland shed in 1875, Paddy mail workmen’s trains which were in a time before provision of pit head baths as it was illegal to travel in normal service trains in working clothes and the railway companies usually provided their most ancient coaches! Large queues waiting for admittance to Chesterfield Market Place for Geo. Stephensons Centenary Exhibition in 1948 of locomotives and rolling stock. Chesterfield Market Place Station opened in 1897 and was closed in 1951 to passengers because of the prohibitive cost of maintaining and repairing Bolsover Tunnel. The station was demolished in 1973 and the current building occupying the site is Future Walk, the finance HQ of the Post Office. Special trains, especially to Chesterfield racecourse, were covered, accidents and many photos of railway workers, staff and army personnel waiting to go to the front in the 1914/18 War.

Glynn finished his talk with an undated photo of a group of pioneers of railway photographers with their cameras and equipment who without them this show would not have been possible!

Thanks Glynn for an excellent show, much appreciated by all “present’ and we send our best wishes to you for your future health