Carnforth railway station

Carnforth is a railway station on the Bentham and Furness Lines, sited 6 miles (10 km) north of Lancaster, England; it serves the market town of Carnforth, in Lancashire, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.

Carnforth railway station was opened on 22 September 1846 by the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway (L&CR); it had a single platform and was a second-class station. It became a junction on 6 June 1857, when the Ulverstone and Lancaster Railway arrived from the north-west; the station served as the line's southern terminus. The Furness Railway took over the U&LR in 1862 and became the second major company operating to Carnforth.

The station was enlarged during the 1870s. In 1880, it began receiving trains from the Midland Railway, following the commissioning of a south-to-east direct curve to the Furness and Midland Joint Railway, creating a triangular junction.

The L&CR was taken over by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), with the station operated under a joint management by the Furness Railway and LNWR; the Midland Railway had running powers into the station. Station personnel wore a uniform with the initials CJS for Carnforth: Joint Station. The Furness Railway erected a distinctive stone-built signal box to the north-west of the station in 1882, used until 1903, and this survives preserved as a grade II listed building.

A major rebuilding project, including a 300-yard long platform (currently used by northbound services), started in 1938 with government funding. With the opening of the new platform on 3 July 1939, it brought the number of platforms in use to six. In 1942, the government approved the rebuilding of Carnforth MPD into a major regional railway depot; the work was completed in 1944.

The film Brief Encounter was partly filmed at the station in February 1945. The station clock became a powerful icon through repeated use in the film.

The West Coast Main Line (WCML) platforms were closed in May 1970, following the withdrawal of local stopping passenger services between Lancaster and Carlisle two years earlier. The platform walls facing the fast lines were demolished, cut back and fenced off before the commissioning of 25 kV overhead electrification in 1974. This made Carnforth a secondary line station, even though it is situated on the main line, as WCML trains cannot call.

In 2011, Network Rail rejected proposals to reopen the main line platforms, stating that there would be too few passengers to justify slowing down trains. Only the former platforms 4 (the original Furness Railway through platform) and 6 (the LMS 1939 platform) remain in use (now renumbered 1 and 2); the old 'Midland bay' (No 5), which once catered for services on the Furness and Midland Joint Railway (between Carnforth and Skipton) has had its track removed.