Windermere branch line

Windermere branch line
standard gauge
Loading gauge	W6
Operating speed	60 mph (97 km/h) maximum
Route map (Click to expand)

v t e Windermere Branch Line
Legend
Windermere Staveley Burneside Kendal West Coast Main Line to Carlisle Oxenholme Lake District West Coast Main Line to Preston

The Windermere branch line, also called the Lakes line, is a branch railway line which runs from Oxenholme on the West Coast Main Line to Windermere via Kendal in the county of Cumbria, North West England.

The line has a loading gauge of W6.^[1]

History

The 10 mile (16 km) long line, which opened on 20 April 1847,

Originally built as a

There are no passing loops or sidings on the route, which is operated under "One Train Working with Train Staff" regulations, with only one train allowed on the line at any time. Entry to and exit from the branch is controlled by the signalling centre at Carlisle and before a service can proceed beyond the branch platform at Oxenholme, the driver must collect the train staff from a cabinet on the platform, which is electrically released by the Carlisle signaller. Once the train has made its journey to the terminus and back again, the staff must be returned to the cabinet before the train can either leave for the south or make another return trip along the single line.

Due to the lack of a run round loop at the

Train services

Passenger services are operated by

On 4 June 2018 Arriva Rail North announced that all trains on the line would be suspended and replaced by a bus service to allow for driver training. The service suspension was initially to be for 2 weeks until 18 June 2018 but this was later extended until 2 July 2018.^[4] However, on 17 June 2018 charter train operator West Coast Railways introduced its own services on the line, which attracted substantially more passengers than the regular Arriva Rail North services.^[5][6] The reason for this may be that no fares were charged to passengers. The £5,500 per day reported cost (total approx £80,000 over two weeks of operation) is said to have been paid for by the Department for Transport.^[7]

Electrification proposal

In August 2013, the Department for Transport announced that the line was to be electrified as part of the wider scheme to wire many other routes in the

However, on 20 July 2017 it was announced that electrification of the Windermere branch had been cancelled.[11] As an alternative, Northern originally planned to utilise Class 769 multiple units on the route; these are Class 319 electric multiple units converted to function as bi-mode units, which would operate under electric power between Manchester and Oxenholme and then under diesel power on the Windermere branch.^[12] However, it was later announced that new Class 331 'Civity' units would be installed with batteries with trials starting from 2021. Platform 3 at Oxenholme Lake District was electrified in 2018 despite the cancelled branch line electrification.

The line in fiction

The branch line appears in fiction in Arthur Ransome's children's novel Pigeon Post; with two of the children releasing a pigeon at Strickland Junction before they go up the little branch line that led into the hills (and to the Lake).

References

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Windermere Branch Line.

• Hunt, John (2–15 July 1997). "The Windermere branch challenge: Railways - 1, Wordsworth - 0".
  OCLC 49953699
  .