Coniston railway station, Cumbria

Coniston
Coniston station in 1951
Location
Place	Coniston
Area	South Lakeland
Coordinates	54°22′05″N 3°04′48″W / 54.3680°N 3.0801°W / 54.3680; -3.0801Coordinates: 54°22′05″N 3°04′48″W / 54.3680°N 3.0801°W / 54.3680; -3.0801
Grid reference	SD300974
Operations
Original company	Coniston Railway
Pre-grouping	Furness Railway
Post-grouping	London Midland and Scottish Railway
Platforms	3
History
18 June 1859	Station opened as "Coniston Lake"
by 1882	renamed plain "Coniston"
6 October 1958	Closed to passengers
30 April 1962	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

Coniston railway station was the northern terminus of a branch line in Cumbria, England.

Authorised by Parliament in August 1857 the line to Coniston was open less than two years later in June 1859. The station building was designed by the Lancaster architect E. G. Paley in Swiss chalet style. The station was enlarged between 1888 and 1892 at a cost of over £4,000 (equivalent to £390,000 in 2015). The train shed was doubled in length and the goods shed was enlarged. A third platform was added in 1896 at a cost of £750 (equivalent to £80,000 in 2015).

There was a single track engine shed and a 42 feet (13 m) turntable south east of the station building. The shed closed when the station closed to passengers in 1958, but remained standing until the line and station were demolished in the 1960s.

British Railways closed the station and the branch to passengers in 1958 and completely in 1962.

The line's last fare-paying passengers are believed to be participants of the SLS/MLS Furness railtour of 27 August 1961.

Railways in the area underwent a complex evolution with the development of Barrow-in-Furness in the second half of the nineteenth century. When Coniston Lake (as Coniston station was originally called) opened in 1858 Barrow was at its early stages of emergence as an industrial town, with Ulverston (then commonly written as "Ulverstone") remaining the local market town, as it had since the Middle Ages.

The May 1865 Down (towards Coniston Lake) timetable shows three arrivals at Coniston Lake - morning midday and evening - from Monday to Saturday (the days are implied, not stated) with two on Sundays; all these trains travelled direct from Ulverstone, with connections shuttling between Barrow and Ulverstone along what was described as "The Barrow Branch." By 1867 the pattern of provision had evolved so that most services shuttled along the branch to the Carnforth to Whitehaven main line at Foxfield, mostly making connections.