Drigg is a railway station on the
Cumbrian Coast Line
The Cumbrian Coast line is a rail route in North West England, running from Carlisle to Barrow-in-Furness via Workington and Whitehaven. The line forms part of Network Rail route NW 4033, which continues (as the Furness line) via Ulverston an ...
, which runs between and . The station, situated north-west of Barrow-in-Furness, serves the villages of
Drigg
Drigg is a village situated in the civil parish of Drigg and Carleton on the West Cumbria coast of the Irish Sea and on the boundary of the Lake District National Park in the Borough of Copeland in the county of Cumbria, England.
Drigg and C ...
and
Holmrook
Holmrook is a linear village in the English county of Cumbria. It lies along the A595 road on the west banks of the River Irt. The B5344 road connects it to Drigg, with its railway station less than two miles to the west.
Two miles north-e ...
in
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...
. It is owned by
Network Rail
Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...
and managed by
Northern Trains
Northern Trains, branded as Northern, (legally Northern Trains Limited) is a State-owned enterprises of the United Kingdom, publicly owned train operating company in England. It is owned by DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT) ...
.
The station is unstaffed, but the main station building still stands and is in private commercial use as a cafe and craft shop.
At the south end of the station is a
level crossing
A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...
with manually-operated gates, controlled from the adjacent
signal box
In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...
. There is step-free access to each platform, however the platforms are lower than the standard ones and are therefore not suitable for mobility-impaired passengers.
Waiting shelters and timetable posters are located on each side of the track, train running information for the station can also obtained by telephone. A ticket machine and digital information screens were installed by operator Northern in 2019, so passengers can now purchase tickets before boarding the train.
A short distance from the station, heavy secured
sidings take special trains carrying
nuclear materials
Nuclear material refers to the metals uranium, plutonium, and thorium, in any form, according to the IAEA. This is differentiated further into "source material", consisting of natural and depleted uranium, and "special fissionable material", con ...
from the
Sellafield
Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nucle ...
nuclear site (which is located close by) to the
Low Level Waste Repository
The Low Level Waste Repository is the UK's central long-term store for low-level radioactive waste located on the West Cumbrian coast near Drigg village and opened in 1959. It is a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Functi ...
where the material is buried.
Paul Merton
Paul James Martin (born 9 July 1957), known under the stage name Paul Merton, is an English writer, actor, comedian and radio and television presenter.
Known for his improvisation skill, Merton's humour is rooted in deadpan, surreal and someti ...
visited the station en route to the Repository in the first episode of his 2016 travel documentary ''
Paul Merton's Secret Stations''.
Paul Merton's Secret Stations - Episode Guide
''Channel 4'' website; Retrieved 2 December 2016
Services
There is an hourly service southbound to Barrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 the ...
and northbound to Whitehaven, and Carlisle
Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...
for much of the day (with slightly longer gaps mid-morning and in the late afternoon). A few through trains continue south of Barrow-in-Furness along the Furness Line
The Furness line is a British railway between and , joining the West Coast Main Line at . A predominantly passenger line, it serves various towns along the Furness coast, including Barrow-in-Furness, Ulverston and Grange-over-Sands. It runs th ...
to .
There is no service after 21:00 each evening, but a Sunday service was introduced with the May 2018 timetable change and is still in operation. Seven northbound and nine southbound trains call if required.
References
External links
*
*
Railway stations in Cumbria
DfT Category F2 stations
Former Furness Railway stations
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1849
Northern franchise railway stations
Railway request stops in Great Britain
1849 establishments in England
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