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The first railway in Sleaford was the Boston, Sleaford and Midland Counties Railway which opened from Barkston Junction, north of Grantham on the Great Northern Railway main line on 16 June 1857 and on to Boston on 13 April 1859. This railway became part of the GNR in 1864.

This was followed by the GNR line from Bourne which opened on 2 January 1872.

Next came the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway which opened from Spalding through Sleaford to Ruskington on 6 March 1882, and from there to Lincoln on 1 August of the same year.

Finally the branch line to RAF Cranwell, then known as HMS Daedalus, opened in 1917.

Passenger services on the Bourne branch ceased on 22 September 1930, although the line remained open between Billingborough and Bourne for goods until 1964. The Cranwell branch closed in 1956.

The Grantham to Boston and Spalding to Lincoln lines remain open.

It is still one of the only places left to have signal boxes named 'North','South','West' & 'East' around the area. With the North and South boxes on the Peterborough to Lincoln line, and then the West and East boxes are at each end of the station on the Grantham to Boston line. So if travelling from Lincoln to Peterborough on the train you would pass all 4 boxes.
From Wikipedia Link

* Update 2014 - Due to engineering works over the course of 2014, the north and south boxes have been decommissioned.

Created: Sun, 21 Nov 2010, Updated: Sat, 9 Sep 2017