Ravenglass (also known as Ravenglass for Eskdale) 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 village of

Ravenglass Ravenglass is a coastal village in the Copeland District in Cumbria, England. It is between Barrow-in-Furness and Whitehaven. Historically in Cumberland, it is the only coastal village in the Lake District National Park. It is located at the es ...

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 two parts of the station are separated by the station's car park. The station is owned by

and managed by

, who provide all passenger train services, whilst the

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway is a minimum gauge heritage railway in Cumbria, England. The line runs from Ravenglass to Dalegarth Station near Boot in the valley of Eskdale, in the Lake District. At Ravenglass the line ends at Ravengl ...

run its own platforms and services. The National Rail station was originally known as ''Ravenglass'' before being lengthened to ''Ravenglass for Eskdale''. It was then renamed to ''Ravenglass'' on 6 May 1974. When

First North Western First North Western was a train operating company in England owned by FirstGroup that operated the North West Regional Railways franchise from March 1997 until December 2004. History In the lead up to the privatisation of British Rail, the Nort ...

operated the station during the early part of the 21st century, it reverted to its name of ''Ravenglass for Eskdale'', until

Northern Rail Northern Rail, branded as Northern, was an English train operating company owned by Serco-Abellio that operated the Northern Rail franchise from 2004 until 2016. It was the primary passenger train operator in Northern England, and operated th ...

rebranded the station signage in 2007, losing the suffix once more. Since 2018 the station has been called "Ravenglass for Eskdale" on all timetables and ticketing, but the station signage remains as "Ravenglass" without the suffix (as at 21 June 2021).

Overview

This station has two platforms, one serving trains travelling towards and one for trains travelling towards . All former station buildings on the National Rail site, which is now unstaffed, are currently owned by the Eskdale Railway company - the main building being a pub, ''The Ratty Arms'', the old southbound shelter a museum (leaving only small shelters for mainline travellers) and the goods shed an engineering workshop. The old

Furness Railway The Furness Railway (Furness) was a railway company operating in the Furness area of Lancashire in North West England. History Formation In the early 1840s, the owners of iron ore mines in the Furness district of Lancashire became interested i ...

main line signal box south of the station also survives - though out of railway use since 1965, it has been restored by the R&ER as a working museum exhibit and is open to the public. Step-free access to both (staggered) platforms is available, with the northbound one via ramps from the Village Car Park and from the Ratty Arms, and to the southbound platform from the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway car park. There is also a footbridge link to the R&ER station at the south end of the northbound platform. To cross between the platforms either use the road bridge (north of the station) or the footbridge at the South End of the station, to the R and E R car park. Train running information can be obtained from timetable posters, information screens and by telephone. A ticket machine is also now in service, to allow intending travellers to buy their tickets prior to boarding.

Services

A basic hourly service operates in each direction, although one northbound train terminates at

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 ...

rather than running through to .GB eNRT December 2019 Edition, Table 100 (Network Rail) Through tickets from trains on the Cumbria Coast Line are available to the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway. Additional evening trains and the first Sunday service for more than 40 years were introduced at the May 2018 timetable change. This runs broadly hourly each way from mid-morning until 19:00.

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway

The

, also known as ''La'al Ratty'' from Cumbrian dialect, is a

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

, providing journeys on a narrow-gauge railway up the scenic Eskdale valley. The station owned by the line is the other side of the car park and is the line's primary station and base of operations, with fully equipped workshops, motive power depot, carriage shed, paint shop and

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'' ...

. For passengers, there is a museum, café, gift shop and ticket office. The station has a turntable and three platforms, however only platforms 1 and 3 see regular use. The station opened in 1875 and has closed and reopened to passengers as the companies have. It has had many changes in layout and design, and is currently at its largest size that it has ever been.

References

External links

* * {{Railway stations served by Northern Trains Railway stations in Cumbria DfT Category F2 stations Former Furness Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1849 Northern franchise railway stations Heritage railway stations in Cumbria Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1876 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1908 Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1915 Museums in Cumbria Railway museums in England 1849 establishments in England Ravenglass

Overview

Services

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway

See also

References

External links