Furness Railway

The Furness Railway (FR) was a railway company operating in the Furness area of Lancashire in North West England.

In the early 1840s, the owners of iron ore mines in the Furness district of Lancashire became interested in a waggonway from their mines to Barrow; the project was adopted and expanded by the Duke of Buccleuch and the Earl of Burlington. Advertisements in 1843 announced a scheme, supported by their Lordships, for a Furness Railway to link Ulverston 'the capital of the district', iron ore mines (at Dalton-in-Furness) and slate mines (at Kirkby-in-Furness) with the coast at Barrow harbour and at Piel pier. Traffic on the line would be horse-drawn, but the line was to be laid out to allow easy conversion to the use of steam power. A survey had already been carried out by James Walker. "The primary object of this undertaking" explained a subsequent advertisement "is to improve the present very dilatory provision for the transport of the valuable Mineral products of Furness and adjoining Districts to the Coast" but it was noted from the start that much of the line would form part of any coastal route north from Lancaster.

The subscription to the company was largely taken up by the duke and the earl, and their associates; although there were some local subscribers – Henry Schneider was on the company's provisional committee – failure to attract local capital meant that the original intention to serve Ulverston was dropped. The company's bill was not opposed in Parliament and the act was given royal assent on 23 May 1844 as the Furness Railway Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. xxii). A further act in 1846 authorised extensions from Kirkby to Broughton-in-Furness, and from Dalton to Ulverston. Goods traffic began running between Dalton and Barrow in June 1846, operated by a single locomotive. The line was passed for passenger use early in August 1846; by the end of the month, passenger trains were running from Dalton to Piel pier, connecting with a steamer to Fleetwood.

At a celebratory excursion and dinner for the directors and friends held at the end of October 1846, it was remarked that the mineral traffic was limited by a shortage of wagons (which prevented the Dalton branch handling more than 2,000 tons of iron ore a day) and of locomotives (which meant that the Kirkby branch was not yet being worked), and that 10,000 of the 12,000 passengers carried so far were excursionists from Fleetwood or Blackpool. Passenger services ceased after about two months, and the line between Dalton and Rampside Junction was doubled to remove the difficulties experienced in working both mineral and passenger traffic on a single track line. In 1847, differences between the railway company and the owner of Piel pier saw the Fleetwood steamer running to Barrow; it returned to Piel pier in 1848; subsequently, steamers also ran between Piel pier and Poulton-le-Sands, connecting with the "Little" North Western Railway. Periodic disagreements and reconciliations saw the steamer service terminal switch between Piel and Barrow on a number of occasions until (1853) the Furness Railway bought the pier.

The Kirkby branch was extended to Broughton, passing inspection for passenger traffic at the end of February 1848; when a Broughton to Barrow train was derailed by mis-set points in July 1849, it was noted that "nearly all the gates and points on the Furness line are attended by women" and that a woman had the management of the points which had been mis-set. The Dalton branch was extended to Lindal (goods traffic running from mines there from early May 1851) and then on to Ulverston, eight waggons of coal being delivered there from Whitehaven in April 1854, even before the station was complete. Passenger services on that section began in June 1854. In 1854, 330,000 tons of iron ore travelled over the railway (as against 225,000 tons the previous year), other goods traffic was up from 22,000 tons in 1853 to 40,000 tons, and there were 145,000 passenger movements (95,000 in 1853); the company declared a dividend at a rate of 6% a year.

Copper mining interests at Coniston promoted the Coniston Railway, running from the Furness Railway at Broughton to Coniston and on to the copper mines. The line was nominally independent of the FR, but the Duke of Devonshire (as the Earl of Burlington had become in 1858) was its chairman; the FR took shares in it, and worked it. It opened for passenger traffic 19 July 1859, although its opening for goods and mineral traffic was deferred for some months as the provision was still incomplete. The Furness Railway obtained an act of Parliament, the Furness and Coniston Railways Amalgamation Act 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c. cxxxiii) giving powers to amalgamate the Coniston Railway with it in 1862.

A branch was built from (just west of) the Leven Viaduct to Greenodd (allowing suppression of a swing bridge in the viaduct) then through Newby Bridge to a terminus beside Windermere at Finsthwaite; the locality had been known as The Landing, but the station was named Lake-side. The line opened June 1869; a company part-owned (after 1873 fully owned) by the FR ran Windermere steamer services in conjunction with the trains; a Bowness resident promptly writing to The Times to query the absence of lifeboats on the steamers.

The Whitehaven and Furness Junction Railway (W&FJR) was completed in November 1851, connecting the Furness Railway to Whitehaven and (on completion of the Bransty tunnel at Whitehaven in 1852) to the West Coast Main Line at Carlisle. In 1865, the W&FJR was leased by the Furness Railway, with a full amalgamation taking effect on 1 July 1866, being authorised by the Furness Railway (Whitehaven Amalgamation) Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. ccxxxvi). The secretary-manager of the W&FJR became secretary of the Furness Railway, whose general manager was promoted to the board of the company, retaining his salary but now being styled 'resident director'. The Furness Railway now extended to Whitehaven, with running powers to Workington, and to the iron works on the North side of the Derwent there. The FR also inherited the W&FJR's involvement in the Cleator and Furness Railway, a joint line with the Whitehaven Cleator and Egremont Railway (WC&ER), authorised by the Cleator and Furness Railway Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. cxxxii), linking the WC&ER at Egremont with the W&FJR at Sellafield to simplify the movement of ore southwards; this line opened on 1 August 1869.