Gilgarran Branch

Extensions were authorised on 27 June 1876, before the original branch opened, to what would become Distington and down the valley of the Lowca Beck to the coast at Parton.

The WCER was commercially successful, paying a significant dividend throughout its existence, but arguably it overplayed its hand, increasing its rates on its near-monopolistic core mineral traffic in the 1870s so much that local Ironmasters decided to dig deep in their pockets and create a new competitor, in the form of the Cleator and Workington Junction Railway.

Public passenger services were provided over two periods between Distington and Whitehaven, using the branch northeastwards from Parton.

[13] Demand for services to a station serving Lowca from Whitehaven was remedied from 11 January 1915[14] by opening Parton Halt near the foot of the branch, from which workers could climb a steep track to their workplaces.

The First World War brought extra demand for iron, steel and coal and threw the branch a lifeline.

The April 1917 Working Time Table shows three Up mineral trains travelling the first 1 mile 12 chains (1.9 km) eastwards from Parton Junction to Workington Iron & Steel Co's No 4 Pit and two travelling beyond to Distington Ironworks, with an extra on Saturdays, all matched by Down trains.

[18][22] This left two sections of the branch with rails in place: The former was to gain an unexpected and as yet undocumented railway life during the Second World War when the High Duty Alloys company was established on the ironworks site, making a wide range of materials, including Hiduminium for war use, such as in aircraft parts.

After the war, however, the rail traffic generated for the branch or the CWJR main line was described by an ex-employee as "negligible".

[23] In the early 1960s occasional scrap wagons were loaded at the former Gilgarran Branch Down platform which was being used as a scrapyard by Hanratty's of Workington.