South Yorkshire Junction Railway

The South Yorkshire Junction Railway was a railway which ran from Wrangbrook Junction on the main line of the Hull and Barnsley Railway to near Denaby Main Colliery Village, South Yorkshire. It was nominally an independent company sponsored by the Denaby and Cadeby Colliery Company but was worked by the Hull and Barnsley Railway.

The S.Y.J.R. received its Act of Parliament on 14 August 1890, and opened for goods traffic on 1 September 1894 and for passengers on 1 December the same year. The passenger service lasted less than 9 years, the last trains running on 1 February 1903. Intermediate passenger stations were at Sprotborough and Pickburn and Brodsworth.

The Hull and Barnsley Railway was absorbed into the North Eastern Railway in 1922 and then to the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping.

The line was over 11 miles in length, with many embankments and cuttings, it also had steep uphill grades in the northerly direction at parts, including a 1 in 100 rise after Denaby, and another steep rise near Wrangbrook, 3miles long being between built at a grade of 1 in 100 or 1 in 112. It crossed the Great Northern and Great Central Joint line 2.5 miles after Wrangbrook junction, a short tunnel "Cadeby Tunnel" was required around 1.5 miles from the Denaby end, being about 250-yards long. A branch to Brodsworth colliery was added in 1908 from Pickburn.

Goods traffic lasted longer than passenger traffic. Most of the line, including the branch which served Brodsworth Colliery, was closed on 7 August 1967.

A short stub remained after this date, extending northwards from Lowfield Junction, the line's southern connection with the Great Central Railway's Doncaster-Sheffield line just west of Conisbrough station. This section ran to sidings serving a limestone quarry operated by the Steetley Dolomite company. It saw its last main line traffic in July 1975, although it continued to be used as a link by the National Coal Board to transfer traffic between Cadeby Colliery and Denaby Main Colliery, where the N.C.B. had wagon repair facilities, until the collieries closed in 1986.

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