The South Yorkshire Joint Railway (SYJR) was a committee formed in 1903, between the Great Central Railway, the Great Northern Railway, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, the Midland Railway and the North Eastern Railway to oversee the construction of a new railway in the Doncaster area of South Yorkshire, England. The five companies had equal rights over the line, each of the companies regularly working trains over it.
The line's passenger service terminated in 1929, but freight service continued, with eight collieries supplied at its height. Most of the collieries closed by the 1990s; but the line remained important for coal transportation both north and southwards to the Aire and Trent Valley power stations.
History
Authorisation and operators
Parliamentary permission to build the line was authorised with the passing of the (3 Edw. 7. c. ccliii) on 14 August 1903, and the formation of the South Yorkshire Joint Line Committee; formed from the railway companies: North Eastern Railway (NER), Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR), Great Northern Railway (GNR), Midland Railway (MR), and Great Central Railway (GCR).
The (1 Edw. 7. c. ccxxx), passed on 9 August 1901, incorporated an earlier scheme, the , a venture of the and companies; this was merged into the South Yorkshire Joint Railway by the 1903 act.
In the grouping of 1923, the and were grouped into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), whilst the , and were all grouped into the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). It thus remained an - joint line until nationalisation into British Railways in 1948.
Doncaster International Railport, which opened in 2012 south-east of junction 3 of the M18 motorway, uses the line as its primary rail access point.