B1 4-6-0 No 61089 comes off Rectory Lane Viaduct with a Skegness train on August 3, 1964. The new line to Cotgrave Colliery is curving away over the viaduct to the left. A 2¾-mile branch diverging from the Nottingham-Grantham line, accessing the colliery via two chords. Built by British Rail, it opened in 1960, two years before the colliery. Most of the traffic headed west, via Colwick, to the power station at Radcliffe-on-Soar. This prompted closure of the east-facing chord in May 1976, having been last used three years earlier. The pit was shut in 1993 and the branch went with it.


Photo: T.G. Hepburn/Rail Archive Stephenson