Harrington and Lowca Light Railway
[16] Traffic between those places and the new company's works, docks and elsewhere in the UK had to climb or descend either very steeply (e.g. the original Rosehill tramway route up from Harrington Harbour) or go circuitously inland.
Although it had led the way in the eighteenth century it would have been hopelessly incapable of handling the volume of traffic required at the start of the twentieth; furthermore, it had no room for expansion.
WISC had a commercial incentive to operate the lines which had evolved between their core Workington sites and Lowca in that they could avoid costs and risks associated with overdependence on the LNWR and its crowded coastal route.
Although these lines were the CWJR's, the WISC and its eventual successor the United Steel Company - provided and ran mineral trains, an arrangement which continued until closure in 1973.
[25] A train taking the inland route from Moss Bay Ironworks to Lowca would start southwards towards Harrington Harbour, squeezed between the LNWR line and the sea.
The train would join the harbour line and stop; the locomotive would run round and head north,[26] immediately swinging northeast to cross the coastal route by a bowstring girder bridge.
An easy run past the Glebe Sand Siding [32] to Rosehill Junction[33] meant that the original Mr Curwen's waggonway 1 in 15 climb from Harrington Harbour had been replaced by a much gentler 2 miles 48 chains (4.2 km) loop.
Sources differ whether the coking works was owned by the Workington Iron and Steel Company (WISC), with technical support from Koppers, whose technology was used, or whether an independent Koppers Coke Ovens Company ran the plant,[37][38] but in 1910 one or both asked the CWJR to provide workmen's services between Workington and Lowca.
[40] Standard works, notably Quick and Butt, make no mention of services at Lowca before 2 June 1913, nor at Micklam or Copperas Hill.
The mention of "...conveying workmen between Harrington and the works..." and entries in Croughton and Quick give tentative support to the Rose Hill Platform (aka Junction) call.
[41][42] Ex-employees writing later state "Miners' trains went up the private railway from Rosehill Box, where Pat McGuire, the "singing signalman" operated.
The process of seeking a "Light Railway Order" did not involve an Act of Parliament with attendant costs and delays.
Step One was to publish a local press "Notice", to which interested parties could respond, this was done on 22 May 1912, setting out the case for a "Harrington and Lowca Light Railway."
Colonel Druitt reported on the Rosehill Junction to Lowca line on 8 May 1913 taking what must have been one of the last steps in the approval process, because the Light Railway Order sanctioning the Harrington and Lowca Light Railway was signed eight days later on 16 May 1913 and services began a fortnight after that on 2 June 1913, with the inaugural train posing with mineworkers of both sexes, akin to the Pit Brow Lasses of the Wigan coalfield.
[52] Separate permission to run public passenger trains from Harrington Junction to Workington Central was not needed as that was part of the CWJR proper.
[54] A footnote on the timetable reads "Mineral Trains to Derwent Works and Harrington Harbour, and vice versa, will run as required."
These trains were "upgraded" to public passenger status by adding an extra composite coach, complete with First Class compartment and lavatory.
[57] Exceptional demand and suppressed imports during the First World War gave a stay of execution to much of Cumberland's iron and steel making industry and associated railways, the LLR included.
With war ended the commercial realities of technological change in steelmaking, exhausting local supplies of raw materials and foreign competition came back to the fore.
This economy measure does not seem to have gone the whole hog towards fully unstaffed stations, but was a step in that direction, encouraged by the rapid growth of local road bus competition.
The service - known locally as "The Rattler" - may have had a precarious future, but it was dealt a body blow by the General Strike which started on 3 May 1926.
[63] The workmen's service did resume after the miners went back to work, but local bus services had seized their chances and made inroads into the market, based on very competitive pricing and an often better product; a bus which stopped near the end of your street was better than a half mile walk to and from Workington Central to add to an exhausting working day.
These never existed on the LLR, so closure to workmen's trains enabled the USC and LMSR to make significant immediate savings by removing signalling and associated staff and infrastructure not needed for a purely mineral line.
After this point the line's staple motive power was Yorkshire Engine Company 0-4-0 diesel electrics, typically paired back-to-back.
These worked the pit environs and took incoming coal from British Railways' locomotives on the zig-zag at Bain's Siding and returned empties there for BR to take away to Solway Colliery, Workington for refilling.
At least five railtours traversed the route, with participants riding in guards vans, these were on 2 March 1968 and 26 May 1969,[68] with three organised by the Border Railway Society, one in 1967, the Last Day described above and at least one between.
