Cleator Moor East railway station

Cleator Moor has had three passenger stations:

• The original 1857 Cleator Moor station which became a goods station when it was replaced in 1866
• Its 1866 replacement which went on to be known as Cleator Moor East, and
• The rival 1879 station which went on to be known as Cleator Moor West.

This article is about Cleator Moor East.

Cleator Moor East
Location
Place	Cleator Moor
Area	Copeland
Coordinates	54°31′31″N 3°31′41″W / 54.5254°N 3.5281°W / 54.5254; -3.5281Coordinates: 54°31′31″N 3°31′41″W / 54.5254°N 3.5281°W / 54.5254; -3.5281
Grid reference	NY011155
Operations
Original company	Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway
Pre-grouping	LNWR & FR Joint Railway
Post-grouping	London, Midland and Scottish Railway
Platforms	2[1]
History
1866	Opened as "Cleator Moor", replaced original station[2]
2 June 1924	Renamed "Cleator Moor East"
13 April 1931	Closed to passengers[3]
11 March 1940	Reopened to workmen's trains[4]
8 April 1940	Closed
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
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1904 railway junctions around Cleator Moor, Parton, Rowrah & Whitehaven

Whitehaven, Cleator & Egremont Railway
Legend
Cleator and Workington Junction Railway Cumbrian Coast Line to Carlisle Cockermouth and Workington Railway Marron Junction Workington Central Workington Main Bridgefoot Harrington Parton Halt Branthwaite Distington Gilgarran Branch Distington Works Ullock Parton Lamplugh Rowrah Whitehaven Summit Winder Whitehaven Tunnel Yeathouse Corkickle Eskett Eskett Junction Mirehouse Junction Frizington Moor Row Cleator Moor West Cleator Moor East St Bees Cleator Moor(first) Woodend St Bees Golf Halt Gillfoot Egremont Nethertown St Thomas Cross Platform Beckermet Mines Braystones Beckermet Sellafield Cumbrian Coast Line to Barrow-in-Furness

Cleator Moor East railway station was the second station built by the Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway in the growing industrial town of Cleator Moor, Cumbria, England.^[5][6]

History

The line was one of the fruits of the rapid industrialisation of West Cumberland in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. The original Cleator Moor station opened to passengers on 1 July 1857 on the line being developed from Moor Row to Rowrah.

Subsidence led the company to build a deviation line which curved round the west side of the original station and the growing settlement, in a similar manner to what it was forced to do at Eskett a few miles to the east. They built a passenger station on the deviation line - known locally as "The Bowthorn Line"^[7] - which would go on to be called Cleator Moor East.

When the deviation line and station opened in 1866 the original station was closed to passengers and became "Cleator Moor Goods Depot." It remained open for goods traffic until the 1950s.

Services

Whilst some Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway (WCER) mineral, goods and passenger traffic to and from Rowrah passed north along the line to Marron Junction, the greater part arrived and left southwards towards Moor Row and therefore passed through Cleator Moor. Mineral traffic was also generated locally from the quarries and mines such as the Iron Works within sight of the station.

In 1922 seven all stations passenger trains called at Cleator Moor East in each direction, with an extra on Whitehaven Market Day. Four were Rowrah to Whitehaven services, the other three plied a long, circuitous route between Workington Main and Whitehaven via Camerton, Marron Junction, Ullock, Rowrah and Moor Row.^[8]

Cleator Moor East station's owning Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont company was taken over by the LNWR and Furness Railway in 1879 as a Joint Line, whereafter the section through the station was usually worked by the LNWR.^[9]

Goods traffic typically consisted of a two daily turns Up and Down.

Mineral traffic was the dominant flow, though this was subject to considerable fluctuation with trade cycles. Stations and signalling along the line south of Rowrah were changed during the Joint regime to conform to Furness Railway standards.^[10]

Rundown and closure

The station closed on 13 April 1931 when normal passenger traffic ended along the line, though workmen's trains were reinstated in March 1940, only to be withdrawn a month later. An enthusiasts' special ran through on 5 September 1954. After scant occasional use the line northwards from Rowrah was abandoned in 1960 and subsequently lifted.^[11]

The line southwards from Rowrah through Cleator Moor East lead a charmed life, continuing with a limestone flow from a quarry at Rowrah until 1978, after which all traffic ceased and the tracks were lifted.^[12]

Afterlife

By 2013 the station appeared to have been demolished and some of the trackbed had become a Public Open Space.

See also

• Furness Railway
• Cleator and Workington Junction Railway

References

Sources

• Atterbury, Paul (2009). Along Lost Lines. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-2706-2. 
• Bradshaw (1986) [1922]. Bradshaw's July 1922 Railway Guide (reprint). Guild Publishing London. 
• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199. 
• Croughton, Godfrey; Kidner, Roger W.; Young, Alan (1982). Private and Untimetabled Railway Stations, Halts and Stopping Places X 43. Headington, Oxford: The Oakwood Press. ISBN 0 85361 281 1. 
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0086-1. OCLC 22311137. 
• Joy, David (1983). Lake Counties (Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain). Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 094653702X. 
• McGowan Gradon, W. (2004) [1952]. The Track of the Ironmasters: A History of the Cleator and Workington Junction Railway. Grange-over-Sands: Cumbrian Railways Association. ISBN 0-9540232-2-6. 
• Smith, Paul; Turner, Keith (2012). Railway Atlas Then and Now. Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN 978 0 7110 3695 6. 
• Suggitt, Gordon (2008). Lost Railways of Cumbria (Railway Series). Newbury: Countryside Books. ISBN 978-1-84674-107-4. 

Further reading

• British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas And Gazetteer. Shepperton: Ian Allan Publishing. 1997 [1958]. ISBN 0-7110-0320-3. 
• Anderson, Paul (April 2002). Hawkins, Chris, ed. "Dog in the Manger? The Track of the Ironmasters". British Railways Illustrated. Clophill: Irwell Press Ltd. 11 (7). 
• Bairstow, Martin (1995). Railways In The Lake District. Martin Bairstow. ISBN 1-871944-11-2. 
• Bowtell, Harold D. (1989). Rails through Lakeland: An Illustrated Journey of the Workington-Cockermouth-Keswick-Penrith Railway 1847-1972. Wyre, Lancashire: Silverling Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-947971-26-2. 
• McGowan Gradon, W. (2004) [1952]. The Track of the Ironmasters: A History of the Cleator and Workington Junction Railway. Grange-over-Sands: Cumbrian Railways Association. ISBN 0-9540232-2-6. 
• Marshall, John (1981). Forgotten Railways: North West England. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0 7153 8003 6. 
• Western, Robert (2001). The Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway OL113. Usk: Oakwood Press. ISBN 0-85361-564-0. 

External links

• Map of the line with photos, via RAILSCOT
• The station on overlain OS maps surveyed from 1898, via National Library of Scotland
• All three closed stations on a 1948 OS Map, via npe maps
• The station, via Rail Map Online
• Cleator Moor East station and deviation line, via railwaycodes
• The railways of Cumbria, via Cumbrian Railways Association
• Photos of Cumbrian railways, via Cumbrian Railways Association
• The railways of Cumbria, via Railways_of_Cumbria
• Cumbrian Industrial History, via Cumbria Industrial History Society
• The line's and station's Engineer's Line References, via railwaycodes.org.uk
• Furness Railtour using many West Cumberland lines 5 September 1954, via sixbellsjunction
• A video tour-de-force of the region's closed lines, via cumbriafilmarchive
• 1882 RCH Diagram showing the station, see page 173 of the pdf, via google
• Haematite, via earthminerals