Cockermouth and Workington Railway

The Cockermouth & Workington Railway was an English railway company (established by Act of Parliament in 1845) which built and operated a railway between the Cumbrian towns of Workington and Cockermouth . The railway opened for service in 1847, and ran from the Whitehaven Junction Railway station at Workington to a station at Cockermouth near the bridge over the Derwent. A single-tracked line of eight and a half miles length, its revenue came largely from the transport of coal from the pits of the lower Derwent valley to the port at Workington for shipment by sea. The Marron extension of the Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway and the Derwent Branch of the Maryport and Carlisle Railway were both constructed to link with the C&WR and together give an alternative route for the northward movement of haematite ore from the Cumberland ore-field. The completion of the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway made the C&WR part of a continuous through route between South Durham and the Cumberland orefield. These developments both improved the potential profitability of the C&WR and made control of it important to bigger companies wishing to maximise the iron-ore traffic over their lines: the C&WR was absorbed by the London and North Western Railway in 1866. Goods traffic on the line ceased in 1964; passenger traffic in 1966. From just east of Bridgefoot to just short of the Papcastle roundabout, the modern A66 trunk road follows the alignment of the C&WR.

As early as 1837, a meeting had been called in Cockermouth to consider the construction of a railway to Workington; it was estimated that the line could be built for £7,000 a mile, and it was said that the coal and lime traffic on its route was already worth £4,000 a year and was bound to increase if the railway was built. Nothing came of this, but the project revived once the Whitehaven Junction Railway (WJR) had obtained its Act: George Stephenson took a day out from surveying the line of the WJR to confirm that a railway between Cockermouth and Workington could be constructed cheaply and easily. In response to a prospectus issued locally, and without further advertising, the £80,000 capital was subscribed for by "parties resident within 20 miles". The prospectus promised a return of 8½ %, assuming the railway would increase traffic: a friendly local paper spoke of the traffic between Cockermouth and Workington being already £20,000 a year and hinted at a return of 17%. The parliamentary Act for the railway was obtained in 1845; there was no opposition in committee, and Royal Assent was given on 21 July 1845 Ground was first broken 8 February 1846 (near Broughton Cross), and the line opened 27 April 1847.

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