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Corkickle railway station

Coordinates: 54°32′29″N 3°34′55″W / 54.5414869°N 3.5820824°W / 54.5414869; -3.5820824
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Corkickle
National Rail
General information
LocationCorkickle, Borough of Copeland
England
Coordinates54°32′29″N 3°34′55″W / 54.5414869°N 3.5820824°W / 54.5414869; -3.5820824
Grid referenceNX977174
Owned byNetwork Rail
Managed byNorthern Trains
Platforms1
Tracks1
Other information
Station codeCKL
ClassificationDfT category F2
History
Original companyWhitehaven and Furness Junction Railway
Pre-groupingFurness Railway
Post-groupingLondon, Midland and Scottish Railway
British Rail (London Midland Region)
Key dates
19 July 1849Opened as Whitehaven Newtown
3 December 1855Resited and renamed Whitehaven Corkickle
1957Renamed Corkickle
Passengers
2018/19Increase 53,668
2019/20Increase 68,974
2020/21Decrease 18,114
2021/22Increase 44,724
2022/23Increase 51,068
Location
Corkickle is located in the former Borough of Copeland
Corkickle
Corkickle
Location in Copeland, Cumbria
Corkickle is located in Cumbria
Corkickle
Corkickle
Location in Cumbria, England
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Corkickle railway station is a railway station serving the suburb of Corkickle near Whitehaven in Cumbria, England. It is on the Cumbrian Coast line, which runs between Carlisle and Barrow-in-Furness. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains. The station opened on 3 December 1855,[1] and is at the southern end of the 1,219 m (3,999 ft) tunnel from Whitehaven. Between 1855 and 1957, the station was known as Whitehaven Corkickle.[1][2]

Facilities

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The station building survives as a private residence. The station is a single platform and has shelters, display information and disabled access.

Services

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Northern Trains
Route 6
Cumbrian Coast, Furness
& Windermere lines
Carlisle
Dalston
Wigton
Aspatria
Maryport
Flimby
Workington
Harrington
Parton
Whitehaven
Corkickle
St Bees
Nethertown
Braystones
Sellafield
Seascale
Drigg
Ravenglass
Heritage railway
Bootle
Silecroft
Millom
Green Road
Foxfield
Kirkby-in-Furness
Askam
Barrow-in-Furness
Roose
Dalton
Ulverston
Cark & Cartmel
Kents Bank
Grange-over-Sands
Arnside
Silverdale
Carnforth
Windermere
Staveley
Burneside
Kendal
Oxenholme Lake District
Lancaster
Preston
Chorley
Bolton
Deansgate
Manchester Metrolink
Manchester Oxford Road
Manchester Piccadilly
Manchester Metrolink
Manchester Airport
Manchester Metrolink Airport interchange
Braystones & Nethertown
are request stops.

Monday to Saturdays there is hourly service northbound to Carlisle and southbound to Barrow-in-Furness. There are no trains after 21:00 on Mondays-Saturdays,[3] but since the May 2018 timetable change a Sunday service now operates (for the first time since 1976) from mid-morning until early evening.

Preceding station National Rail National Rail Following station
Whitehaven   Northern Trains
Cumbrian Coast line / Windermere branch line
  St Bees
  Historical railways  
Whitehaven   Whitehaven and Furness Junction Railway   St Bees

Freight

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The area immediately south of the station was for many years a busy freight location, handling haematite ore traffic from Moor Row mine as well as chemical tankers up & down the incline at the nearby Preston Street goods depot (the one time W&FJR passenger terminus) and associated yard.[4] Two signal boxes (Corkickle No. 1 & No. 2)[5][6] supervised the sidings, as well as controlling access to and from the incline and the Moor Row branch (the surviving portion of the former Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway line to Egremont & Sellafield). Although sufficiently busy to require its own resident shunting locomotive well into the 1970s, the gradual loss of traffic from the early 1980s onwards saw facilities run down and following the demise of Preston Street depot, the yard eventually closed (along with both signal boxes, which had been replaced by standard LMR-designed structures in 1958–59)[7] on 15/16 February 1997.[8] Today no trace remains of the sidings or either signal box, only the one surviving running line southwards towards St Bees & Sellafield.

The Corkickle Brake

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Corkickle Brake, showing the winding house on the skyline

In 1881 the Corkickle Brake, a roped incline 525 yards (480 m) in length and with gradients of between 1 in 5.2 and 1 in 6.6 was built from the Furness Railway main line, a short distance to the south of Corkickle station, to the Earl of Lonsdale's Croft Pit.[9]

The 'brake' closed in 1931 due to the worsening financial situation of the colliery's owners, Lonsdale's Whitehaven Colliery Co.[9] In May 1955, the incline was re-opened, this time to serve the factory of Marchon Products - a subsidiary of Albright and Wilson - at Kells. It was used mainly to haul rail tanker wagons containing sulphuric acid from the main line - by now in the ownership of British Railways - to the Marchon factory. The Corkickle Brake closed for good on 31 October 1986 when it was the last commercial roped incline in Britain.[10] The task of transporting acid and other chemicals was taken over by road tankers.[11]

References

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  1. ^ a b Quick (2009), p. 410.
  2. ^ British Railways (1957/8)
  3. ^ GB Rail Timetable (December 2019 Edition), Table 100
  4. ^ Class 25s - Around BarrowDerby Sulzers, Retrieved 2013-10-03
  5. ^ D. Allen and C.J. Woolstenholmes, A Pictorial Survey of London Midland Signalling, OPC, 1996, p. 123. ISBN 0-86093-523-X
  6. ^ British Railways Layout Plans of the 1950s, Vol.6 West Coast Main Line (Euxton Junction to Mossband) and branches.Signalling Record Society 1993, p.44. ISBN 1-873228-05-8.
  7. ^ Quayle (2006), p. 85.
  8. ^ Quayle (2006), p. 93.
  9. ^ a b Quayle (2006), p. 60.
  10. ^ Colin E Mountford "Rope haulage - the forgotten element of railway history" in Early Railways - proc of the First International Railway Conference. Pub Newcomen Society 1998
  11. ^ Quayle (2006), pp. 61–65.

Sources

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  • British Railways London Midland Region Passenger Timetable, 16 September 1957 to 8 June 1958.
  • GB Rail Timetable Winter Edition 13 December 2009 - 22 May 2010.
  • Hyde, M. and Pevsner, N The Buildings of England: Cumbria. Yale University Press 2010. ISBN 978-0-300-12663-1
  • Joy, D. Cumbrian Coast Railways. Dalesman Publishing 1968.
  • Joy, D. A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain, Volume 14: The Lake Counties. David and Charles 1983. ISBN 0-946537-02-X
  • Mountford, C.E. Rope and Chain Haulage - The Forgotten Element of Railway History. Industrial Railway Society, 2013. ISBN 9781901556841
  • Quayle, H. (2006). Whitehaven - The Railways and Waggonways of a Unique Cumberland Port. Cumbrian Railways Association. ISBN 978-0-9540232-5-6.
  • Quick, Michael (2009) [2001]. Railway passenger stations in Great Britain: a chronology (4th ed.). Oxford: Railway & Canal Historical Society. ISBN 978-0-901461-57-5. OCLC 612226077.
  • Routledge, A.W. Marchon - The Whtehaven Chemical Works. Tempus, 2005. ISBN 0752435728
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