Settle Junction railway station was located near the town of

Settle Settle or SETTLE may refer to: Places * Settle, Kentucky, United States * Settle, North Yorkshire, a town in England ** Settle Rural District, a historical administrative district Music * Settle (band), an indie rock band from Pennsylvania * ''S ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

, England, immediately to south of the junction between the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...

's North Western and Settle-Carlisle branches, northwest of .

History

It was opened five months after the main line to to serve as an "exchange station" with the older route to Morecambe (as stated in an 1872 report submitted to the Settle and Carlisle Construction Committee of the MR by General Manager James Allport and Chief Engineer John Crossley). However, the expected traffic failed to materialise and after just one year of operation, it was closed on 1 November 1877. Its remote location ( south of Settle and north of

Long Preston Long Preston is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England, in the Yorkshire Dales. It lies along the A65 road, and is from Skipton and from Settle. The population of Long Preston in 2001 was 680, increas ...

) undoubtedly contributed to its early demise, as potential travellers had the choice of three alternative stations (, or ) that were all more conveniently sited for their respective communities.

Stationmaster

W. Jenkins was installed as the first station master in 1876 but only served one year until 2 November 1877, when the station management was placed under the direct supervision of Long Preston.

The site today

Little trace of the station remains today, although the station house survived in private ownership until well after

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

of the railways in 1948, finally succumbing to demolition in the late 1960s. Settle Junction

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'' ...

(a Midland Railway timber structure dating from 1913) is still operational and can easily be seen from the adjacent A65, which runs alongside the railway at this point. The box houses a

London Midland Region The London Midland Region (LMR) was one of the six regions created on the formation of the nationalised British Railways (BR), and initially consisted of ex-London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) lines in England, Wales and Northern Irelan ...

standard frame of 31 levers and controls the busy

double junction A double junction is a railway junction where a double-track railway splits into two double track lines. Usually, one line is the main line and carries traffic through the junction at normal speed, while the other track is a branch line that ca ...

(which was rebuilt following a derailment in 1979) between the two lines, as well as the block sections toward to the south, Blea Moor Sidings to the north and Station Junction to the north west. The latter is the longest block section on the UK rail network at just over in length and severely restricts the capacity of the Carnforth line (a typical passenger train is timetabled to take 40 minutes to travel from one end of the section to the other, including station stops).

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 ...

has acknowledged the performance issues this can cause in its 2008 Lancashire and Cumbria Route Utilisation Strategy and hopes to install additional signalling along the route at some point in the future to address the problem. The same strategy has recently been adopted to solve similar headway issues on the section to Blea Moor (additional signals having been commissioned at to allow a second train to proceed as far as Horton once the preceding train has passed there).

Notes

References

*Binns, D. (1982), ''The Scenic Settle & Carlisle Railway'', Wyvern Publications, Skipton.

Bibliography

*Flinders, T.G. (1981), ''On The Settle-Carlisle Route'', Ian Allan Ltd, Shepperton, Surrey.

External links

RAILSCOT - Settle Junction GalleryAnother photo of the Settle Junction signal box
{{Railway stations in Craven Rail junctions in England Disused railway stations in North Yorkshire Former Midland Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1876 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1877 Settle, North Yorkshire