The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (LD&ECR) was built to connect coalfields in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire with Warrington and a new port on the Lincolnshire coast. It was a huge undertaking, and the company was unable to raise the money to build its line. With the financial help of the Great Eastern Railway it managed to open between Chesterfield and Lincoln with a branch towards Sheffield from 1896. Despite efforts to promote tourist travel, the passenger business was never buoyant, but collieries were connected to the line, at first and in succeeding years. The Great Eastern Railway, and other main line companies, transported coal to the southern counties, and the company's engines took coal to Immingham in great quantities. The company had a fleet of tank engines.
The Sheffield branch was not completed, but interests in Sheffield encouraged its extension which was built by a nominally independent company, the Sheffield District Railway, sponsored by the LD&ECR and the Great Eastern Railway with the support of the Midland Railway. It opened in 1900.
Hopes of reaching the Lincolnshire coast were never fulfilled and the LD&ECR's dependency on other lines limited its future. It agreed a merger with the Great Central Railway and was absorbed by the GCR in 1907. The Nottinghamshire coalfield continued to develop throughout the first half of the twentieth century, and several new connections to the former LD&ECR line were made.
Between 1939 and 1955 the passenger service was successively curtailed and while some collieries became exhausted, most continued to be productive to the final decade of the twentieth century and beyond. Tuxford Rail Innovation & Development Centre and its connecting line are the only remaining parts of the line still in use.