Place Lowca, Cumbria Grid reference NX979218 Platforms in use 1 | Area Copeland Original company Bain's Mineral Railway | |
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Pre-grouping Harrington & Lowca Light Railway Post-grouping Harrington & Lowca Light Railway People also search for Linefoot railway station | ||
Lowca had two railway stations that served the village of Lowca in the former county of Cumberland, England, which is now part of Cumbria.
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. Vis; Harrington No.4, Harrington No.9, etc.
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 Moss bay cart Sidings to the colliery station in the pit yard. After the Light Railway order ended the private workmens service continued until April 1929, after which the workmens trains ceased.
By 1922 the service had settled down to three trains each way between Lowca and Workington Central, with an extra on Saturdays. There never was a public Sunday service.
The fist 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 (CWJR) at Rosehill Junction south of Harrington Village. Workmen's services to and from Lowca variously ran from Moss Bay Cart Siding, Moss Bay (during the First World War), Workington Central and Seaton (Cumbria). Public passenger trains ran to these last two only.
For many years there has been confusion regarding the stations at Lowca. Railway historians who did not do a full historical undertaking into the railway thought as many do today there was only one station but research into the two stations by members of the Cumbrian Railways Association proved that there were two stations at Lowca and 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 2ns 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 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.