Gilgarran Branch
The Gilgarran Branch (occasionally referred to as the Gilgarron Branch) was a 7-mile-32-chain long (11.9 km) single track railway line connecting four separate railway companies in the former county of Cumberland, now part of Cumbria, England.
The original Gilgarran Branch was authorised by Act of Parliament on 2 August 1875 to run 2 miles 68 chains (4.6 km) from a junction near Ullock westwards to Gilgarran No 2 Colliery. Extensions were authorised on 27 June 1876, before the original branch opened, to what would become Distington and down the valley of the Lowca Beck to the coast at Parton. The line as a whole became known as the Gilgarran Branch.
The line was proposed by the Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway (WCER), but by the time it opened in 1879 the company had been bought out by the LNW and Furness Railways who operated its routes as the "LNWR & FR Joint Railway", known locally as "The Joint Lines".
The WCER was commercially successful, paying a significant dividend throughout its existence, but arguably it overplayed its hand, increasing its rates on its near-monopolistic core mineral traffic in the 1870s so much that local Ironmasters decided to dig deep in their pockets and create a new competitor, in the form of the Cleator and Workington Junction Railway.
The Gilgarran Branch was one of a series of defensive measures aimed to stymie the new company.
The branch was built westwards from the Joint Line's Rowrah to Marron Junction line at Ullock Junction 54°36′17″N 3°26′18″W / 54.6048°N 3.4383°W, a remote, upland spot with no road access. This first 4 miles 26 chains (7.0 km), gently graded section as far as Distington opened in 1879 and served Wythemoor Colliery and the then recently opened Distington Ironworks.
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