Solway Junction Railway
Legend
Caledonian Railway Main Line Kirtlebridge Annan Shawhill Annan Glasgow, Dumfries and Carlisle Railway Solway Viaduct over Solway Firth  Scotland England Bowness Whitrigg Carlisle and Silloth Bay Railway Kirkbride Junction Sleightholme Abbey Junction Carlisle and Silloth Bay Railway Bromfield Maryport and Carlisle Railway Brayton (M&CR) Maryport and Carlisle Railway

Bowness was a station which served Bowness-on-Solway, a village in Cumbria on the English side of the Solway Firth. The station was opened on 8 August 1870 by the Caledonian Railway on a line constructed from the Caledonian Railway Main Line at Kirtlebridge across the Glasgow South Western Line, then forming the Solway Junction Railway over the Solway Viaduct to Brayton. The line had opened for freight from 13 September 1869.

Bowness was opened by the Solway Junction Railway, then part of the Caledonian Railway. The passenger service was never well patronised, and it reduced to just one carriage at the front of an occasional goods train. In September 1917 this was suspended,^[4] but it was reinstated in 1920.^[5] Passenger services were finally withdrawn in 1921, and the line south of Annan over the Solway Viaduct was closed completely.

The station was only built as an afterthought following a petition from local people.^[6] It had two platforms, a signal box, cattle pens and an overbridge at the northern end. Old photographs show a carriage body on one platform as a shelter.^[7] In 1910 a water tank was located next to the overbridge and the platform beside the signal box had no buildings, not even a passenger shelter.^[8] In 1915 the signal box was open from 4 am to 8:30 pm.

Disused, the station became the property of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923 until sold together with the viaduct.^[9]

Beyond Bowness station the railway ran along an embankment and then crossed the estuary of the Solway upon an iron girder viaduct, one mile 176 yards in length.^[10] The local people's frustration at the delay in reopening the Solway Viaduct after it was damaged in 1881 is recorded in the newspapers of the day.^[8]

The station house is now a private dwelling.^[5]

Notes

Sources

• Edgar, Stuart & Sinton, John M. (1990). The Solway Junction Railway. Oxford: Oakwood Press. ISBN 978-0853613954.
• Mullay, A. J. (1990). Rails across the border: the story of Anglo-Scottish Railways. Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens Limited. ISBN 1-85260-186-8.
• Quick, Michael (2009) [2001]. Railway passenger stations in Great Britain: a chronology (4th ed.). Oxford: Railway & Canal Historical Society. ISBN 978-0-901461-57-5. OCLC 612226077.
• Robinson, Peter W. (2002). Cumbria's Lost Railways. Catrine: Stenlake Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84033-205-6.

Further reading

• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-086-0. OCLC 22311137.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.
• Railways of the Solway Plain

• RAILSCOT on Solway Junction Railway