Ulverston Railway Station
Ulverston railway station is a Grade II listed railway station that serves the town of Ulverston in Cumbria, England.
It is located on the Furness Line from Barrow-in-Furness to Lancaster. It is operated by Northern, who replaced former operator, First TransPennine Express at the beginning of April 2016.
It is served by local services operated by Northern from Lancaster to Barrow-in-Furness (with some continuing to Sellafield or Carlisle via the Cumbrian Coast Line) and by semi-fast services from Preston and Manchester Airport. From December 2018, these will operate on an improved frequency (eight through trains to/from Manchester Airport per day instead of the current four).[2]
The current buildings are architecturally noteworthy and date from 1873, when they were rebuilt as befitting one of the main stations of the Furness Railway. The clock tower and glass awnings and supporting decorative ironwork, now extensively restored and repainted, are particularly fine. The passenger waiting room retains many period features.
The Furness Railway's line from Barrow & Dalton-in-Furness was the first railway to serve the town, being completed on 7 June 1854. Three years later the Ulverston and Lancaster Railway opened the line southwards to Carnforth via Arnside and built a new through station on the current site, which opened on 26 August 1857, leaving the old Furness Railway terminus to be used as a goods depot. The Furness Railway then took over the Ulverston & Lancaster company in 1862.
The unusual platform layout (where the northbound line has a face on both sides) is a legacy of the station's former role as the interchange for the branch line to Lakeside, which diverged from the main line at Plumpton Junction a few miles to the south before heading north-eastwards through Greenodd & Haverthwaite, to its terminus at Lakeside on the southern shore of Windermere. The island platform allowed easy cross-platform interchange for those passengers traveling from the south changing onto the connecting service to Lakeside whilst those wishing to exit the station could do so by alighting on the opposite side platform. Today only platforms one and three are used.
The branch opened on 1 June 1869 and was busy from the outset in the summer months by tourists, who could make a convenient transfer to the Windermere steamboats at Lakeside. The line was much quieter in winter though and year-round services ended in the autumn of 1938 when passenger trains only operated during the summer. This continued until 6 September 1965, when the line fell victim to the Beeching Axe (The Beeching Axe was a reduction of route network and restructuring of the railways in Great Britain, according to a plan outlined in two reports, The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965), written by Dr Richard Beeching and published by the British Railways Board). Its northern end was subsequently reopened on 2 May 1973 as the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway but the remainder was lifted in the early 1970s and the track bed used for improvements to the A590 road (over which passengers must continue their journey if heading to Lakeside today).
The Cache
The cache is a small container located on the crossroads of Prince's Street, Conishead Road, Springfield Road and the road to the railway station.