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Foxfield to Coniston Branch Line

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Does anyone have information regarding the service pattern for this line before it closed in the 50's , was it mostly a shuttle back and forth to Foxfield ?(if so did Foxfield have a bay platform at some point) or would it have gone through to say Barrow and terminated there or even Lancaster. Its hard to work out where the line branched off from. My guess would be northbound to the left?

What a beautiful line it would have been today!!!
 
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Mcr Warrior

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The Coniston branch diverged from the Cumbrian Coast line just north of Foxfield station, between the station and the Duddon viaduct. Closed to passengers on 6th October 1958 but with some goods workings until 30th April 1962. Can't put this closure down to Beeching!

Some Tuesday and Thursday direct excursions from Blackpool to Coniston in the 1950's apparently.
 

DelW

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This is the layout in 1923, from a map in the NLS collection.

The north to west chord marked "Old Railway" is curious. It doesn't seem to exist in 1850, but is already marked as Old Railway (with no track shown) by 1890. The presence of the old county boundary and the odd overlaps of old maps make it difficult to find any mapping between those dates. So it may or may not have ever had track laid.
 

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Mcr Warrior

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According to Martin Bairstow's "Railways in the Lake District" (1995 edition), the 'Bradshaw' timetable for April 1957 showed eight trips each way (between Coniston and Foxfield) on weekdays though with no Sunday trains outside the peak summer months. Poor connections meant a journey from Carnforth took two-and-a-quarter hours and it was impractical to reach Coniston from points much further afield.

Just an island platform at Foxfield with the Foxfield-Coniston shuttle services shunted out of the way to allow trains to call in both directions on the 'main line'. The branch line train would then come back into the platform before setting off for Coniston.
 

Gloster

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The line from the Barrow direction reached Broughton in 1849 and a line from the Whitehaven direction reached it in 1850. The curve avoiding Broughton opened in 1858 and the west to north curve seems to have closed within a few years;Broughton-Coniston opened in 1859.

Almost all services just ran between Foxfield and Coniston, although in the late 19th century there were trains direct to Furness Abbey.
 

Mcr Warrior

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The line from the Barrow direction reached Broughton in 1849 and a line from the Whitehaven direction reached it in 1850. The curve avoiding Broughton opened in 1858 and the west to north curve seems to have closed within a few years;Broughton-Coniston opened in 1859.
Avoiding Foxfield presumably? Is the short-lived west to north curve shown in situ on any old OS maps, or just as a disused line after closure?
 

randyrippley

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A lot of short-lived mineral lines around there, mainly for iron ore extraction
 

mailbyrail

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Cobb's atlas shows the link with the dates 1850 to c.1862 with the Furness Railway taking over the line in 1862
 

Gloster

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Avoiding Foxfield presumably? Is the short-lived west to north curve shown in situ on any old OS maps, or just as a disused line after closure?
[/QUOTE

No. Unless I am getting confused and I can only get the top of the screenshot up, previously trains from the Green Road direction to Foxfield and beyond (and v.v.) had to reverse at Broughton: the 1859 curve meant that this was no longer necessary.

I should have added that my original information came from volume 14 of the David & Charles regional histories series, David Joy being the author of this one.
 

52290

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I can clearly remember travelling on the line in the summer of either 1957 or 58. My parents had booked on a excursion train from Leyland to Coniston one Saturday. Although it picked up at Leyland the train had started from somewhere in Derbyshire, Leyland being one of the last pick ups.
The loco was a Crab from Rowsley shed (17C) ,possibly 42874, and the train consisted of exLMS corridor stock.
After an hour or two in Coniston special buses took us to Ambleside where we boarded the Lake Windermere steamer to Lakeside. Here our train, complete with the Rowsley Crab, was waiting to take us back home. What you might call "a grand day out". Apart from the weather which I think was quite wet.
 

randyrippley

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Don't forget the original plan was for the through route to be direct across the Duddon sands on a viaduct similar to the one at Arnside. The railway ran out of money and had to lash up an alternative route following the shore line
 
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Don't forget the original plan was for the through route to be direct across the Duddon sands on a viaduct similar to the one at Arnside. The railway ran out of money and had to lash up an alternative route following the shore line
If that is similar to the road bridge proposal from the 50s (still talked about today and will never get off the ground)then the line pretty much would have gone from Barrow straight to Millom.
Would the Coniston branch have even existed!
 

randyrippley

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If that is similar to the road bridge proposal from the 50s (still talked about today and will never get off the ground)then the line pretty much would have gone from Barrow straight to Millom.
Would the Coniston branch have even existed!

from memory I think the plan was Askam - Millom, the shortest viaduct stretch
I assume that was also the route of the ancient sand path
 

DelW

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The line from the Barrow direction reached Broughton in 1849 and a line from the Whitehaven direction reached it in 1850. The curve avoiding Broughton opened in 1858 and the west to north curve seems to have closed within a few years;Broughton-Coniston opened in 1859.
That would mean that the north to west curve predated the south to west curve (that being the one avoiding Broughton)? As far as I can see, the NLS's OS maps don't support that: see another screenshot attached. This is from a map surveyed in 1846-7, and printed in 1850, which shows the south to west curve (the surviving line), but no sign of the chord towards Broughton. The map dates are confirmed at the bottom of the sheet (not visible in the screenshot).
As an aside, the map was produced "under the direction of Captain Yolland R.E.", who I think became involved in the Railway Inspectorate - I must look up "Red for Danger" to check.
 

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Gloster

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This is very odd, as it appears that the line (from the west) was not authorised until 1848. My only suggestion is that, due to the time lag between surveying and printing, someone added the line in, but got it wrong.
 

DelW

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Curious indeed! I do find little mysteries like this surprisingly interesting to explore, and I'm sure the answer is out there somewhere. I hope someone can track it down.

I have sometimes suspected that some of the dates shown on the NLS website for their maps might be wrong, but in this case they do match what's printed on the sheet.
 

Mcr Warrior

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So we are now looking for the date(s) of opening (and date(s) of closing, if applicable) of the sections of line from...

(and not necessarily listed in sequential order)

(i) Foxfield station towards Broughton;

(ii) Duddon viaduct towards Broughton;

and

(iii) Duddon viaduct direct into Foxfield station.

Three sides of a triangle. Is that right?

Or did the line from the West head off towards Broughton from some point before crossing the Duddon viaduct?
 

Doctor Fegg

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I hadn't realised how much of the line still has public access:


Connecting these up to form a rail trail along the full length of the branch would be an excellent project.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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I have a small family connection to the Coniston branch, at Torver.
In the mid-19th century my family (Richard Kitchen) ran an iron foundry in Warrington on Scotland Road, and among other things they made small railway/canal cranes.
One of these cranes went to the goods yard at Torver, and when the line closed it was rescued by the owner of the Wilson Arms pub and put on display in their car park.
There are other preserved "family cranes" at Ruthin Craft Centre in North Wales (which is on the site of the Vale of Clwyd line station), and on the canal system in Cheshire.
 

DelW

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So we are now looking for the date(s) of opening (and date(s) of closing, if applicable) of the sections of line from...

(and not necessarily listed in sequential order)

(i) Foxfield station towards Broughton;

(ii) Duddon viaduct towards Broughton;

and

(iii) Duddon viaduct direct into Foxfield station.

Three sides of a triangle. Is that right?
Those would certainly help to clarify matters ;)
Or did the line from the West head off towards Broughton from some point before crossing the Duddon viaduct?
I wondered if that was a possible explanation too, but I can't find any such route on maps or anything visible on Google satellite images.
 

Senex

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That would mean that the north to west curve predated the south to west curve (that being the one avoiding Broughton)? As far as I can see, the NLS's OS maps don't support that: see another screenshot attached. This is from a map surveyed in 1846-7, and printed in 1850, which shows the south to west curve (the surviving line), but no sign of the chord towards Broughton. The map dates are confirmed at the bottom of the sheet (not visible in the screenshot).
As an aside, the map was produced "under the direction of Captain Yolland R.E.", who I think became involved in the Railway Inspectorate - I must look up "Red for Danger" to check.
This map is something of a problem. As you say, it says it was surveyed in 1846-7 and published in 1850. Yet it clearly marks Foxfield station, which was not opened until 1858. So although there is no indication of it having been updated after first publication, it must have been (perhaps, as in the case of the early 1-inch series, by the addition of railways). There were clearly changes after the survey in any case, as the section of the Whitehaven & Furness Junction line from Bootle to Broughton was not opened until November 1850, to a junction ¾ of a mile from Broughton. Early descriptions of the line seem to make it clear that that junction was for the west-to-north curve, not the west-to-south curve shewn on this map, as there is no mention of any reversal between Broughton and Holborn Hill (Millom). See for example the descriptions of a directors' special over the line on 12 October 1850 or the two-page account of the line in the Illustrated London News for 9 November 1850. (And yes, this was the same Yolland that most of us know of best as a very distinguished member of the Railway Inspectorate.)
 

Mcr Warrior

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David John Hindle's "Enjoying the Cumbrian Coast Railway" (Silverlink - 2017) has the Broughton-in-Furness avoiding line, known as the 'Foxfield Curve', as being installed in August 1858. This obviated the need for trains between Whitehaven and Barrow having to reverse at Broughton-in-Furness, which apparently didn't have a turntable.

This, I understand was the same date that Foxfield station opened as a junction station.

Also, as per Martin Bairstow, I note the line from Kirkby (on the Barrow side) to Broughton as opening in February 1848 and then the separate line from Bootle (on the Whitehaven side) to Broughton opening in either November 1849 or November 1850, which meant there was then an inverted Y junction where the two lines met about a mile South of Broughton (which presumably places it in the Foxfield area) which would have operated for seven or eight years or so before the so-called 'Foxfield curve' opened.
 
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DelW

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That does indeed make sense, so the "1850" map actually has railway elements updated to some time later than 1858, following opening of the avoiding line and (sometime later) closure of the original west to north line. Apologies for having introduced some confusion with that map!

In Google satellite view, the northern end of that original west to north curve is still visible, north of the access road to the sewage works.
 

S&CLER

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I hadn't realised how much of the line still has public access:


Connecting these up to form a rail trail along the full length of the branch would be an excellent project.
It would indeed, but the farm at Woodland seems to have taken over one essential section and access is blocked by a substantial gate. You have to go down to a lane to continue north or deviate on to a parallel path, which runs alongside a wall for part of the way. Still a nice walk that far from Broughton, though. In Broughton, old railway buildings are still visible more or less opposite the livestock market, but there are 2 (I think) modern houses where the railway used to cross the road .
 
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Mcr Warrior

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This map is something of a problem. As you say, it says it was surveyed in 1846-7 and published in 1850. Yet it clearly marks Foxfield station, which was not opened until 1858.
When did Foxfield station first open? 1848 or 1858. Assuming that it's the former, i.e. the year when the Kirkby to Broughton line was opened, but that it became a more important strategic interchange station when the 'Foxfield curve' was opened on the 'direct' coastal line in 1858.
 

Gloster

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Foxfield opened in 1858.

According to Michael Andrews’ The Furness Railway - A History, when the connection between line from Whitehaven via Green Road and that from the south to Broughton was authorised it should have faced south (as it did from 1858) so that trains could run directly from the Green Road direction towards Dalton. For some reason the junction was built facing the opposite way, but the inspector advised no action.
 
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