The Cockermouth and Workington Railway was an English railway company, established by act of Parliament in 1845, which built and operated a railway between the Cumberland towns of Workington and Cockermouth. The railway opened for service in 1847, and ran from the Whitehaven Junction Railway station at Workington to a station at Cockermouth near the bridge over the Derwent. A single-tracked line of eight and a half miles length, its revenue came largely from the transport of coal from the pits of the lower Derwent valley to the port at Workington for shipment by sea. The Marron extension of the Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway and the Derwent Branch of the Maryport and Carlisle Railway were both constructed to link with the and together give an alternative route for the northward movement of haematite ore from the Cumberland ore-field. The completion of the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway made the part of a continuous through route between South Durham and the Cumberland orefield. These developments both improved the potential profitability of the , and made control of it important to bigger companies wishing to maximise the iron-ore traffic over their lines: the was absorbed by the London and North Western Railway in 1866.
Goods traffic on the line ceased in 1964; passenger traffic in 1966. From just east of Bridgefoot to just short of the Papcastle roundabout, the modern A66 trunk road follows the alignment of the .
History
Promotion, construction and opening
As early as 1837, a meeting had been called in Cockermouth to consider the construction of a railway to Workington; it was estimated that the line could be built for £7,000 a mile, and it was said that the coal and lime traffic on its route was already worth £4,000 a year and was bound to increase if the railway was built.Paragraph - not separately titled - under general heading Nothing came of this, but the project revived once the Whitehaven Junction Railway (WJR) had obtained its act of Parliament, the Whitehaven Junction Railway Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. lxiv): George Stephenson took a day out from surveying the line of the to confirm that a railway between Cockermouth and Workington could be constructed cheaply and easily. In response to a prospectus issued locally, and without further advertising, the £80,000 capital was subscribed for by "parties resident within 20 miles".paragraphs (not separately titled) following The prospectus promised a return of 8.5%, assuming the railway would increase traffic: a friendly local paper spoke of the traffic between Cockermouth and Workington being already £20,000 a year and hinted at a return of 17%. The (8 & 9 Vict. c. cxx) was obtained; there was no opposition in committee, and royal assent was given on 21 July 1845 Ground was first broken 8 February 1846 (near Broughton Cross), and the line opened 27 April 1847.
The station at Cockermouth was on the south bank of, and close to the road bridge over, the River Derwent; the line ran westwards south of the Derwent and immediately north of Brigham and Broughton Cross, crossing the River Marron near its confluence with the Derwent. West of the Marron, the railway kept to the low ground of the flood plain of the Derwent, crossing and recrossing the Derwent five times, finally running along the north side of the Derwent to a junction with the Whitehaven Junction Railway just north of the latter's bridge over the Derwent; passenger trains ran over the to reach Workington railway station (now joint between the and the ). The line was single track throughout, and all the bridges were built as timber trestles. Originally, there were intermediate stations at Brigham and at Camerton; additional stations were soon added at Broughton Cross and at Workington Bridge at the northern end of the road bridge over the Derwent (the latter station to remove the objection that travellers to the upper end of Workington were being carried past their ultimate destination on the opposite bank of the Derwent and then faced a 10-to-15-minute walk uphill from the station.)
Operation: 'on the most economical principles'
Passenger trains (in 1854 four a day in both directions) were timetabled to connect with the service on the coast line; departures from Workington were "subject to irregularities in the Arrival of other Trains at Workington, for which the Cockermouth Trains will be detained"(advertisement) although this was noted to cause serious inconvenience: – the Maryport and Carlisle was notorious for poor timekeeping not until 1858 were there through trains (Cockermouth to Whitehaven May 1858, Cockermouth to Carlisle August 1858. The coal traffic was to use the to reach the south bank of the Derwent, and then branch off to coal drops on the north side of Workington harbour. However, the railway was noted at the opening celebrations to be 'nearly finished': provisions for handling the mineral traffic were not yet in place, coal traffic only began in June 1847 and one of the three additional coal drops at Workington Harbour was still not completed in August 1848
The prospectus proved to have underestimated the cost of the railway, and overestimated its traffic, and hence revenue. By the first half of 1849 (when the harbour improvements were complete) the total capital expenditure on the railway was over £120,000 and the revenue from minerals traffic was only £1,484 from coals, £257 from lime. To improve the situation by attracting more coal traffic onto the line, the company obtained the (12 & 13 Vict. c. xxxviii) to build a branch to Bridgefoot,advertisement - but at a meeting to authorise issue of preference shares shareholders objected that the Bridgefoot branch was to run to one of the pits operated by Messrs Fletcher; it would be more seemly for the chairman (one of the Fletchers) to build the branch on his own account as a private siding, as another director (Jonathan Harris of Greysouthen) had done for his colliery ((giving what was subsequently referred to as the 'Marron siding'). The meeting terminated in 'a sharp and personal discussion on the subject', and the branch was never built: the powers being allowed to lapse in 1854.
In response to lower than predicted traffic receipts, the line was run on 'the most economical principles': the salary of the secretary/manager was reduced, leading to the departure of the incumbent for the similar post with the Maryport and Carlisle and his replacement by a younger man acting as secretary/manager/engineer. The Railway Times approved, noting 'altogether the economical management of this line is most satisfactory', - (working expenses for the first half of 1852 were only 35% of receipts ) but a comic novel of 1851 poked fun at the for having pursued economy to the point where all the platform staff were too young to shave, and passengers arrived covered in smuts because the locomotives were burning coal rather than coke. (The author, Henry Mayhew, clearly knew the area, but it is not clear how far his remarks were accurate reportage, how far exaggeration or comic invention) In 1854 the Carlisle Journal spoke (lightly and in passing) of 'the risk of being capsized into the Derwent by the jolting of that most lopsided of all railways, the Cockermouth and Workington line'.
Adversity, dissatisfaction, and recriminations (1854–1859)
In 1853, the (which had been disrupted by floods and damage to bridges in the previous winter) approached the Whitehaven Junction to discuss amalgamation, but was rebuffed by the . Over the three and a half years up to the end of 1851, the dividend on the 's shares (nominal value £20) amounted to 25s 3d; a return of 1.8% a year. In the first half of 1853, the 's traffic was declining, the directors were unable to recommend a half-year dividend any greater than two shillings (1% a year) and some shareholders thought even this imprudent as it left almost nothing in the contingency fund. The market price for shares was reported to be £8 12s.
In 1854, an attempt by the former chairman to reduce the number of directors revealed tensions between those who felt the company was being run by and for 'the coal interest', and the mine-owners who thought not enough was being done to assist them. The Fletchers had recently opened a new mine at Crossbarrow (west of Bridgefoot); coal raised there was now being carted direct to Workington harbour rather than (as initially) to the Marron siding. An 'anti-coal' critic saw this as a ploy to secure a favourable price for rail transport and another instance of the Fletchers wanting everything their own way. The problem, retorted the Fletchers (complaining of 'vague innuendos and underhand detraction'), was not price, although they were unhappy to be charged more than Lord Lonsdale for rail transport from the Marron siding; Mr Harris was now asking a prohibitive toll for access to his staith because he thought the provision of waggons and of ship-loading facilities at Workington inadequate for the existing coal trade.letter from William Fletcher of Tarn Bank, Cockermouth, printed as The Fletchers supported this criticism, but their complaint at the dilapidated state of the company's plant, and in particular the coal waggons, was met by the company secretary with the assertion that the problem was not with the waggons, but with the Fletchers' habitual overloading of them. A correspondence war then ensued between the Fletchers and the company secretary (who defended the actions of the company and contradicted the Fletchers seriatim, only to be contradicted in his turn and accused of 'slanderous fabrication').undated letter from John Dodds, printed as further letter dated 30 Aug 1854 from William Fletcher, printed as The original 'anti-coal' critic also spelled out his discontent: the line had only been built because the coal interest had deliberately overstated the likely traffic. The coal traffic was under half that promised, but because of mismanagement the line had cost one-third more than it should have. Carriage rates for coal had been set too low, with the result that the colliery owners kept their pits open and made large profits, whilst the ordinary shareholder had lost three-quarters of their money.letter from Geo. Cape dated "Cockermouth, Aug 23rd 1854" printed under heading
More coal waggons were bought and the loading facilities at Workington harbour increased and the Fletchers reverted to rail transport of their coal, but in 1856, faced with an increased carriage rate,voted by the board 9 September 1856, according to letter dated 26 September 1856 from 'A shareholder', published as again threatened to remove their custom. They were now in a far stronger position; they were now leasing Lord Lonsdale's pits at Clifton, so pits they were working accounted for nearly half the revenue of the line. Furthermore, Lord Lonsdale had indicated that if the 's rates hindered exploitation of his mineral rights (which now included the Crossbarrow pit) the Fletchers should negotiate a lower rate; if the were unreasonable he was prepared to build and lease a waggonway/railway direct from the pits to Workington harbour.a summary of the extent of the 'Clifton and Crossbarrow Colliery' (and of the Fletchers' position vis-à-vis the ) is given in This was supported by Lord Lonsdale giving notice of a parliamentary bill for construction of the waggonway. Despite a flurry of pseudonymous letters in the Cumberland Pacquetfor example the letters published as denouncing dictation by the 'coal interest', the board acceded to Fletchers' demands, reducing the rate per waggon from 3s10d to 2s6d.