Shottle railway station

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Shottle Railway Station is the second intermediate station on the former Midland Railway branch line to the small town of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. The line is off the Midland Main Line at Duffield railway station, the first being Hazelwood. The line is being reopened in stages as the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway.

Class 37 no. 37075 at Shottle on 8th May 2005.

[edit] Location

The Station is located off the A517 road, which is the main route from Belper to Ashbourne. The station approach road is on the north side of this road, very close to the traffic signal controlled junction of the A517 with the Wirksworth Road, which runs alongside the railway for much of the way from Wirksworth to Duffield.

The nearest settlement to the Station is the group of dwellings and Public House at the road junction, known as Cowers Lane. However the station is more or less equidistant from the two slightly larger settlements of Turnditch to the West, and Shottlegate to the East.

[edit] Today

The branch was last used by freight trains in 1989, with the last service being run on 4th December, hauled by Class 47 47373 but the station buildings and platform are still in existence.

The buildings and part of the former station yard now being used by a local oil distribution company, and as such they are private property with no public access from the road.

As this section of the Branch is currently disused, there is little passing traffic, apart from infrequent occasions when road/rail plant is tested along the line as part of its acceptance procedure for Network Rail.

The station is on a line to Wirksworth, which has been designated a Strategic Freight Site, and while there is a chance that one day freight trains will run again, a local community rail company staffed by local volunteer labour and assisted by other groups plans to reintroduce passenger traffic to Shottle and the junction with the main line at Duffield by late 2010.

The volunteers been working to reopen the railway from Wirksworth since 1997, and since then have managed to clear the line of vegetation. They are currently operating a passenger service northwards over the former freight-only incline to Ravenstor, and in March 2008 partially reopened the branch southwards as far as Idridgehay, but have yet to reach Shottle.