Trains Through the Years at Wingfield

Wingfield has witnessed a huge variety of locomotives and rolling stock over its long history. One of our volunteers has hand built a 1/25th scale model of an early North MIdland Railway steam locomotive and passenger train and this model can viewed at the station.

We have been fortunate to recent receive a wonderful collection of digital photographs of trains taken by Alf Kitchen, last Station Master at Wingfield, his son Alan and Alan's friend Mick Quinn who lived in the nearby Butchers Arms pub. Other local enthusiasts have also been kind enough to let us use their images from more recent times including Dan from South Wingfield Trains and Allan Foulds.

19th Century

The earliest known photograph of a locomotive at Wingfield was taken in 1898. Built in 1846 by Bury, Curtis and Kennedy, this locomotive spent the last few years of its life working the Wingfield Manor colliery railway before being withdrawn and is pictured in the corner of Wingfield Station goods yard prior to scrapping.

Late 1950s and early 1960s

This period witnessed a huge variety of locomotive hauled trains through the station. To date we have photographs of the following steam locomotive types in our collection.

LMS designed locomotives

  • Royal Scot Class 4-6-0

  • Patriot Class 4-6-0

  • Jubilee Class 4-6-0

  • Black 5 Class 4-6-0

  • 8F Class 2-8-0

  • Stanier Mogul 2-6-0

  • Hughes Crab 2-6-0

  • Ivatt 2-6-0

  • Class 4F 0-6-0

  • Class 3F 0-6-0

  • Stanier 4MT 2-6-4T

  • Fairburn 4MT 2-6-4T

Wingfield was provided with a rostered shunting engine and crew to work the station yard, shunt colliery wagons and also work the nearby Shirland colliery branch. The locomotive for this duty was usually a 3F 0-6-0 or 4F 0-6-0 or sometimes a class 4MT tank engine as picctured here.

Class 3F 0-6-0 trundles south through Wingfield in 1961. 

LNER designed locomotives

The 1960s saw regular workings of LNER engines through to Derby. The engines were usually serviced overnight in Derby and returned north the following day either light engine or on local stopping services. Long rakes of LNER coaching stock were regularly to be seen on services to and from the West of England.

  • A3 4-6-2

  • A1 4-6-2

  • A2 4-6-2

  • V2 2-6-2

  • B1 4-6-0

A1 Class 4-6-2 60139 Sea Eagle ambles into Wingfield on an all-stations stopping service on 11 April 1964.

Southern Railway designed locomotives

Southern locomotives were very occasionally seen at Wingfield on rail tours.

West Country Class 4-6-2 34094 Morthoe speeds north through Wingfield on a rail tour to Sheffield on 12 May 1963

Great Western designed locomotives

To date no pictures have emerged of any GWR engines working through Wingfield

War Department locomotives

The powerful Class 8 Freight 2-8-0 engines were regular visitors to Wingfield on heavy freight trains.

WD 8F 2-8-0 heads an Up goods train along the goods loop on 13 June 1963. Note Wingfield Manor on the distant rocky outcrop

British Railways designed steams locomotives

Many of the British Railways Standard Class steam loco worked through Wingfield including:

3 MTs, 4MTs, 5MTs, 9F.

Standard Class 5MT speeds south through the station with an express made up of LNER coaches on 8 September 1962

British Rail diesel-electric locomotives in the 1950s and 1960s

From the late 1950s diesel-electric locomotive types began to appear at Wingfield. Regular types included:

Class 03    Class 37

Class 08    Class 40

Class 20    Class 45

Class 25    Class 46

Class 31    Class 47

Class 45 South Express through Ewingifeld in 1963

National Coal Board 

Employed their own small fleet of shunting engines at Wingfield Manor colliery. These small but powerful engines would work empty coal wagons into the colliery for loading, shunt the yard and return loaded coal wagons to the mainline.

The 1980s

By the early 1980s most of the 1960s diesel classes could still be seen at Wingfield, however the new Class 56 heavy freight locomotives had also become regular performers. However by the end of the 1980s, High Speed Trains started to dominate passenger workings and old favourites like the Class 25, 40, 45 and 46 had all been withdrawn.

Class 45/1 heads a St Pancras to Sheffield into city service through the station in the winter of 1985

21st Century

Today the regular London to Sheffield intercity and Edinburgh to Plymouth cross country passenger services are dominated by high-speed diesel-electric multiple units.  Surprisingly a wide variety of locomotives can still be seen at Wingfield. This can be explained by the regular Network Rail test trains, specialist rolling stock moves, rail tours and moves to/from heritage railway sites. Both steam and diesel locomotives can be seen on some of these workings. 

37401 Mary Queen of Scots heads north past Wingfield Manor. Mary Queen of Scots spent 3 years imprisoned in our local Manor!

We welcome railway enthusiasts at the station. There are a number of good photographic vantage points including the footbridge, top of steps at north end of goods yard, goods dock, platforms and Network Rail access point 500 metres south of the station. We will publish a map on this website in the near future and also regularly post interesting trains videoed at the station on our Facebook site, wingfieldstation1947.

In future, we plan to erect a train departure board in the station, so visitors can get real time information on what trains are due on the mainline.