Corkickle  | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| General information | |||||
| Location | Corkickle,Cumberland England | ||||
| Coordinates | 54°32′29″N3°34′55″W / 54.5414869°N 3.5820824°W /54.5414869; -3.5820824 | ||||
| Grid reference | NX977174 | ||||
| Owned by | Network Rail | ||||
| Managed by | Northern Trains | ||||
| Platforms | 1 | ||||
| Tracks | 1 | ||||
| Other information | |||||
| Station code | CKL | ||||
| Classification | DfT category F2 | ||||
| History | |||||
| Original company | Whitehaven and Furness Junction Railway | ||||
| Pre-grouping | Furness Railway | ||||
| Post-grouping | London, Midland and Scottish Railway British Rail (London Midland Region) | ||||
| Key dates | |||||
| 19 July 1849 | Opened asWhitehaven Newtown | ||||
| 3 December 1855 | Resited and renamedWhitehaven Corkickle | ||||
| 1957 | RenamedCorkickle | ||||
| Passengers | |||||
| 2019/20 |  68,974 | ||||
| 2020/21 |  18,114 | ||||
| 2021/22 | 44,724 | ||||
| 2022/23 | 51,068 | ||||
| 2023/24 | 54,254 | ||||
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Corkickle railway station is a railway station serving the suburb ofCorkickle nearWhitehaven inCumbria, England. It is on theCumbrian Coast Line, which runs betweenCarlisle andBarrow-in-Furness. It is owned byNetwork Rail and managed byNorthern Trains. The station opened on 3 December 1855,[1] and is at the southern end of the 1,219 m (3,999 ft) tunnel from Whitehaven. Between 1855 and 1957, the station was known asWhitehaven Corkickle.[1][2]
The station building survives as a private residence. The station is a single platform and has shelters, display information and disabled access.
Monday to Saturday, there is an hourly service northbound to Carlisle and southbound toBarrow-in-Furness. There are no trains after 21:00 on Mondays-Saturdays,[3] but since the May 2018 timetable change, a Sunday service now operates (for the first time since 1976) from mid-morning until early evening.
| Preceding station |  National Rail | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whitehaven | Northern Trains Cumbrian Coast Line /Windermere branch line | St Bees | ||
| Historical railways | ||||
| Whitehaven | Whitehaven and Furness Junction Railway | St Bees | ||
The area immediately south of the station was for many years a busy freight location, handlinghaematite ore traffic from Moor Row mine as well as chemical tankers up & down the incline at the nearby Preston Street goods depot (the one time W&FJR passenger terminus) and associated yard.[4] Twosignal boxes (Corkickle No. 1 & No. 2)[5][6] supervised the sidings, as well as controlling access to and from the incline and the Moor Row branch (the surviving portion of the formerWhitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway line toEgremont & Sellafield). Although sufficiently busy to require its own resident shunting locomotive well into the 1970s, the gradual loss of traffic from the early 1980s onwards saw facilities run down and following the demise of Preston Street depot, the yard eventually closed (along with both signal boxes, which had been replaced by standard LMR-designed structures in 1958–59)[7] on 15/16 February 1997.[8] Today no trace remains of the sidings or either signal box, only the one surviving running line southwards towards St Bees & Sellafield.
In 1881 the Corkickle Brake, aroped incline 525 yards (480 m) in length and with gradients of between 1 in 5.2 and 1 in 6.6 was built from theFurness Railway main line, a short distance to the south of Corkickle station, to theEarl of Lonsdale's Croft Pit.[9]
The 'brake' closed in 1931 due to the worsening financial situation of the colliery's owners, Lonsdale's Whitehaven Colliery Co.[9] In May 1955, the incline was re-opened, this time to serve the factory of Marchon Products - a subsidiary ofAlbright and Wilson - at Kells. It was used mainly to haul rail tanker wagons containingsulphuric acid from the main line - by now in the ownership ofBritish Railways - to the Marchon factory. The Corkickle Brake closed for good on 31 October 1986 when it was the last commercial roped incline in Britain.[10] The task of transporting acid and other chemicals was taken over by road tankers.[11]
