Lowca had two railway stations that served the village of Lowca in the former
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
of
Cumberland, England, which is now part of
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. C ...
.
Both Lowca stations in a 1933 aerial photo
''Britain from Above'' (free login needed to zoom)
The line was originally a waggonway that conveyed coal from a drift mine at Lowca to Harrington Harbour and later to Harrington Iron Works. As the demand for greater quantities of coal to feed the ironworks was most important new mines with vertical shafts were sunk. These were named after the parent ironworks and took the name of Harrington with a shaft number to identify them, such as Harrington No.4 and Harrington No.9.
A public passenger service ran from the 1st station between 2 June 1913 and when the 2nd Lowca Station was completed in August 1913 public services ran until they ceased in May 1926. Unadvertised workmen's trains had started in April 1912 and ran between and the colliery station in the pit yard. After the Light Railway order ended the private workmen's service continued until April 1929, after which the workmen's trains ceased.
By 1922 the service had settled down to three trains each way between Lowca and , with an extra on Saturdays. There never was a public Sunday service.
The first station at Lowca was built by Bain & Co. who owned the colliery and Harrington Ironworks. It was situated in the colliery yard and was closed to public passenger use when the second station at Lowca was opened in August 1913.
The second station was on the Harrington and Lowca Light Railway which connected with the Cleator & Workington Junction Railway
The Cleator & Workington Junction Railway (C&WJR) was located in West Cumberland in Northern England, serving the towns of Cleator Moor and Workington and intermediate villages. It was mainly used for coal, limestone and iron ore traffic for t ...
(CWJR) at Rosehill Junction south of Harrington Village. At different times workmen's services to Lowca ran from four places:
(during the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
), , and . Public passenger trains ran from these last two only.
For many years there has been confusion regarding the stations at Lowca, with the two stations in the village being treated as one. The first official passenger service terminated in the colliery yard as shown in the photo. The 1st station continued in use until 1929 for workmen's trains but for passenger use the 2nd Lowca Station was the terminus.
Freight services
The railway through Lowca was first and foremost a mineral railway, with the short-lived workmen's and passenger services an afterthought. Lines first reached Lowca at the end of the Nineteenth Century, eventually running northwards towards Workington and southeastwards to meet the Gilgarran Branch
The Gilgarran Branch (occasionally referred to as the Gilgarron Branch) was a single track railway line connecting four separate railway companies in the former county of Cumberland, now part of Cumbria, England.
Origins
The original Gilgarra ...
at Bain's Siding. The driving forces were coal, fireclay at nearby Micklam, coke and coking bi-products. Centrepiece for over fifty years was Harrington No. 10 Colliery which, confusingly, was not in Harrington, but in Lowca.
Between them these industrial concerns sustained the railway through Lowca until final closure to all traffic in May 1973.
See also
* Gilgarran Branch
The Gilgarran Branch (occasionally referred to as the Gilgarron Branch) was a single track railway line connecting four separate railway companies in the former county of Cumberland, now part of Cumbria, England.
Origins
The original Gilgarra ...
* Cleator and Workington Junction Railway
The Cleator & Workington Junction Railway (C&WJR) was located in West Cumberland in Northern England, serving the towns of Cleator Moor and Workington and intermediate villages. It was mainly used for coal, limestone and iron ore traffic for t ...
References
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External links
The closed station on an inter-war OS map
''National Library of Scotland''
The station
''Rail Map Online''
Latterday steam at Lowca
''flickr''
Latterday steam at Lowca
''flickr''
Industrial relics at Lowca
''flickr''
The station and line
''railwaycodes''
The Harrington collieries
''Haig Pit Mining Museum''
{{Closed stations Cumbria
Disused railway stations in Cumbria
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1913
Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1926
1913 establishments in England