Arlecdon railway station
| Arlecdon | |
|---|---|
Site of the station in 1994
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| Location | |
| Place | Arlecdon |
| Area | Copeland |
| Coordinates | 54°33′13″N 3°28′13″W / 54.5537°N 3.4704°WCoordinates: 54°33′13″N 3°28′13″W / 54.5537°N 3.4704°W |
| Grid reference | NY049185 |
| Operations | |
| Original company | Cleator and Workington Junction Railway |
| Pre-grouping | Cleator and Workington Junction Railway |
| Post-grouping | London Midland and Scottish Railway |
| Platforms | 1 |
| History | |
| 3 July 1883 | Opened for daily services |
| December 1883 | Closed to passengers |
| 5 October 1912 | Opened for passengers on Saturdays only |
| December 1916 | Closed for passengers |
| 1 January 1927 | Closed for workmen's services |
| 8 August 1938 | Line and station closed completely |
| Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom | |
| Closed railway stations in Britain A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z |
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Arlecdon railway station served the village of Arlecdon in the former English county of Cumberland, now part of Cumbria.
The station was the southern passenger terminus of the Cleator and Workington Junction Railway's (C&WJR) otherwise mineral branch which left the company's Workington Central to Cleator Moor West main line at Rowrah Branch Junction south of Distington. The 6 miles 41 chains (10.5 km), single track branch opened for mineral traffic on 1 May 1882 and was known locally as "Baird's Line" and officially as the Rowrah Branch.
The branch's main purpose was to access the limestone quarries at Arlecdon's near neighbour Rowrah and the iron mines served by the Rowrah and Kelton Fell Railway, (RKFR) which the branch joined 30 chains (0.60 km) east of the station at Rowrah Junction.
The branch was six and a three quarter miles long, but its point to point length was a mere four and a half miles, the difference being due to the extremely sinuous course it had to take to keep the ruling gradient to a "mere" 1 in 44. The gradients largely favoured loaded trains, but they still had to cope with half a mile uphill through Arlecdon and a mile and a half uphill from Brownriggs Gill to Whillimoor Top.
The C&WJR was one of the fruits of the rapid industrialisation of West Cumberland in the second half of the Nineteenth Century, specifically being born as a reaction to oligopolistic behaviour by the London and North Western and Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railways.
All lines in the area were primarily aimed at mineral traffic, notably iron ore, coal and limestone, none more so than those built by the C&WJR, which earned the local name "The Track of the Ironmasters". General goods and passenger services were provided, but were very small beer compared with mineral traffic.
The founding Act of Parliament of June 1878 confirmed the company's agreement with the Furness Railway that the latter would operate the line for one third of the receipts.
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Wikipedia