Great Northern Railway and London & North Western Railway Joint Line from Market Harborough to Bottesford and Saxondale via Melton Mowbray

Harby & Stathern Station

Harby & Stathern Station stood 1250 metres (3/4 of a mile) south of Stathern Junction in a most desolate, inaccessible and windblown location. It would have been better suited on the road between Harby and Stathern but the cost of building up the embankment there for the buildings proved too costly. Harby and Stathern was designated the main exchange station of the line owing to the resistance of making Melton Mowbray a railway centre. As the exchange station it proved difficult to manage and run, the sidings being insufficient at peak times and the turntable could not be accessed directly without engines performing forward and reverse movements through the sidings. Passenger trains were difficult from an operations point of view, the two platform faces were accessible by the two through lines but the through west platform face was only accessible from the down line.

A Great Northern train arriving from Leicester would run on the down main line platform, perform station duties, move ahead and reverse to the "West" platform to await the London and North Western train from Market Harborough and take on any passengers there might be for the Grantham direction. After the departure of the LNW train the GNR train would leave for Grantham. This was more complicated when the Great Northern Newark-Northampton service ran. For a short period the Newark to Northampton trains terminated at Harby & Stathern, and these trains had be disposed of in the sidings until the other passenger trains finished their work and left.

In the other direction a Great Northern train would run to the up main line platform, perform station duties and then move ahead and back into the bay siding. This was not truly a bay, but a carriage dock, but it had a face to the up platform. If the train had more than two six-wheel coaches and a small engine the bay could not hold them and the train would have to be shunted across to the "West" platform, thereby disrupting down line working. The station was very inconvenient for local passengers with the approach road some five hundred yards long.

The goods yard was very large. The original warehouse still stands, which was well equipped with a wagon weigh on the shed line and a large office, divided into two, with accommodation for six to eight clerks. In the yard were a number of cabins used by the Signal and Telegraph Department, it being the headquarters for the Joint Line. The Engineers had their district inspector's office here, together with a store. The other cabins were used by shunters, goods porters and plate-layers gangs. Another cabin was used by the Railway Clearing House number-takers. There was also an oil store for the whole of the line.

The signal box was on the up platform at the southern end, containing 36 working levers and 16 spare. The "West" platform was controlled at both ends from the box and it was signalled in both directions. The south end of the goods yard was controlled by a ground frame, with release from the signal box. On the down platform was a very unusual name board. The uprights carrying the board were extended in height and had brackets for lamps, which performed the dual duty of illuminating the name board and lighting the platform.

It would be most interesting to find any photographs of the yard and buildings.

Stathern Ironstone siding

South of Harby & Stathern Station and just south of the public road from Harby to Eastwell was the Stathern Ironstone Siding. The signal box was on the down side and directly opposite were the sidings and loading drop. The sidings consisted of two lines on either side of the drop, so arranged that the empty wagons coming from the north were shunted into the north sidings, from whence they ran by gravity to the drop and, when loaded, continued by gravity to the sidings on the south side. With this fall the sidings were steeply graded and caused some difficulty for engines to draw out the loaded trains. The rope hauled incline was installed in 1880. The drop was fed by a narrow gauge railway which came down the hillside by a rope-worked incline. At the top of the hill the narrow gauge railway served many mines in the district around Eastwell and Eaton, and extended up to the Great Northern line to Eaton. As many as three trains left the Stathern sidings daily in the best days, with destinations such as Stanton, Staveley, Renishaw and Parkgate. Some of the ironworks owned mines themselves, but most of the mining was done by small individual firms. These sidings were the last working point on the Joint Line, with the exception of the Redmile petrol depot. Richard Maund - Rail Chronology 

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