Solway Junction Railway

Solway Junction Railway


Solway Viaduct - Solway Junction Railway

Map of the Solway Junction Railway
(Aston & Barrie, 1932; p.28)
Locale Scotland
Dates of operation 13 September 1869 – 27 April 1931
Successor Caledonian Railway
Track gauge 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)
Legend
 Caledonian Railway Main Line
Kirtlebridge
 Annan Shawhill

Annan
 Glasgow, Dumfries and Carlisle Railway
Solway Viaduct over Solway Firth
 Bowness
 Whitrigg
Carlisle and Silloth Bay Railway
Kirkbride Junction
 Abbey Junction
Carlisle and Silloth Bay Railway
 Bromfield
Maryport and Carlisle Railway

Brayton(M&CR)
Maryport and Carlisle Railway

The Solway Junction Railway was built by an independent railway company to shorten the route from ironstone mines in Cumberland to ironworks in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.

It opened in 1869, and it involved a viaduct 1 mile 8 chains (1.8 km) long crossing the Solway Firth, as well as approach lines connecting existing railways on both sides.

The viaduct was susceptible to damage from floating ice sheets, and the rising cost of repairs and maintenance, and falling traffic volumes as the Cumberland fields became uncompetitive, led to closure of the viaduct in 1921. The viaduct and the connecting railways were dismantled, and now only the shore embankments remain.

History

Conception

In the late 1850s, business interests were concerned to improve transport facilities for iron ore being mined in the area of Canonbie, in south Dumfriesshire close to the English border. Their intention was to bring the mineral to Annan Harbour (on the north shore of the Solway Firth), from where it could be forwarded by coastal shipping. They approached James Brunlees, a civil engineer with experience of coastal works. He advised against the scheme, which would have partly duplicated the Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) route, but he put them in touch with business people in Cumberland, who had engaged him to plan a railway from Cumberland iron deposits to a new harbour at Bowness, on the south shore of the Solway.

The two groups conferred, and revised their plans; they projected a railway that would cross the Solway by a viaduct, connecting existing railways on both side of the Solway. At the time there was heavy iron ore traffic from Cumberland to Lanarkshire and Ayrshire ironworks, running by rail via Carlisle and the Caledonian Railway, the Glasgow and South Western Railway, or by coastal shipping. 92,000 tons of iron ore was exported from Cumberland to Scotland in 1863. The viaduct route would save considerable mileage and avoid congestion at Carlisle. The viaduct was to be the longest in Europe,[1] and there was to be significant mileage of new railway either side.

The Parliamentary examination of the Dumfries and Cumberland (Solway Junction) Railway Bill took place in the 1864 session. The Company promoted the line independently, and much argument took place as the G&SWR and the Caledonian each attempted to gain primacy of use of the line: this was rebuffed, however, and the Company (as the Solway Junction Railway) was authorised on 30 June 1864, with capital of £315,000:[2][3] the line would be 25 miles (40 km) in length. Brunlees was the designing engineer.[4]

The first chairman of the company was Alexander Brogden.[5]

The independence seems to have suffered when it came to raising the capital, for in 1866 an Act was passed to empower the North British Railway and the G&SWR to subscribe £100,000 each, and to increase the authorised capital by £80,000.[note 1] On 22 March 1867 the Caledonian, which had originally declined to invest in the line, agreed to put in £60,000, the Solway Junction company having run out of money.[2]

Construction

System map of the Solway Junction Railway

The viaduct had 193 spans of 30 feet (9.14 m); each pier consisted of five cast iron columns of hollow section, 12 inches (305 mm) diameter; the outer columns were raked. The columns were founded on iron tubular piles that were driven by a steam pile driver, after an unsuccessful attempt to screw them in to the substrate. There was no special navigation span; at the Parliamentary hearing it had been stated that shipping was light, and was confined to small vessels.[note 2] In effect the viaduct was a trestle construction.

The cost of the viaduct and approach embankments was £100,000. It had 193 spans with 2,892 tons of cast iron for the piles and columns, and 1,807 tons of wrought iron in the superstructure; it was constructed so as to enable easy widening to carry double track if this was later required. Bowness Moss on the Cumberland side was a particular difficulty over a distance of a mile and a quarter (2 km); it was "unsafe for cattle and horses", and considerable works had to be put in hand to stabilise it.

There was a fatal accident in November 1866, when a riveting platform collapsed and a man and a boy fell to the beach below. The man was killed and the boy concussed.[4]

Opening

A trial trip was made on 3 July 1869, and freight traffic started on 13 September 1869,[3] with three mineral trains each way daily. The line opened to passengers between Kirtlebridge and Annan on 1 October 1869, and throughout on 8 August 1870.[note 3]

Declining traffic

At first the mineral traffic was healthy, but in the mid-1870s Spanish iron ore became readily and cheaply available; it was shipped direct to Ayrshire ports, and carryings on the line fell. An operating profit of £2,038 in 1874 declined to a loss of £574 in 1880.[note 4][4]

Ice damage

The viaduct proved susceptible to ice damage. Early on water accumulated in the hollow columns and during very cold weather it froze, bursting the cast iron. This was dealt with by drilling drainage holes.

In early 1881 an exceptionally cold spell took place, and large areas of the estuary froze over. When the ice started to thaw, very large blocks of ice travelled with the ebb tide, and repeatedly struck the cast iron columns of the viaduct. Trains were stopped and on the morning of 30 January 1881, observers saw that several piers were demolished. The passage of ice floes continued until on 2 February it was possible to assess the sum of the damage: 45 of the 193 piers had collapsed and 37 spans had fallen.[note 5][2][4]

Major Marindin of the Board of Trade conducted an enquiry. He recommended that the repairs to the viaduct should include ice fenders to protect the piers.

In 1882 Parliamentary Authority was obtained to raise £30,000 to pay for the repairs. The money was to be raised by issue of debenture stock; the Caledonian offered to take all of it, but the Solway Junction, fearing for its independence, refused to allocate the Caledonian any.[2] The viaduct was re-opened on 1 May 1884.[4]

Transfer to the Caledonian Railway

An Act had been passed on 21 July 1873 authorising the agreed purchase of the section between Kirtlebridge and Annan by the Caledonian Railway, ratifying an arrangement from the previous month.[2]

On 22 June 1895 the Caledonian acquired the remainder of the Solway Junction line; it already held £122,500 of the company's capital of £467,153, and was to pay a perpetual annuity of £4,500 to the company.

Maintenance deferred, and closure

In 1914 an assessment of the maintenance needs of the viaduct was carried out. The long metal structure exposed to a marine atmosphere had deteriorated and £15,500 would need to be expended in maintenance work. The outbreak of World War I in fact suspended the work, but the demands for raw materials for munitions gave the line additional traffic.

A miners' strike took place in May 1921, by which time the daily train service had reduced to one mixed train each way, and on 30 May the service was amended to two return trips per week. In August 1921 a new review of the maintenance needs on the viaduct showed that £70,000 needed to be spent: this sum was beyond what was justified and after the last train on 31 August 1921 the viaduct line was closed. The section between Kirtlebridge and Annan, and between Brayton and Abbey Junction continued in operation for the time being.

It seems that for some time the closed viaduct was used illicitly by pedestrians.[4]

Dismantling

Any future use of the viaduct was impossibly expensive, and after a period of dormancy, in 1933 arrangements were made to demolish it. Arnott, Young and Company purchased the bridge and dismantled it; much of the material found a second use, and some of the metal was used by the Japanese forces in the Sino-Japanese War. During the work three men lost their lives when attempting extraction of one of the piles; the men were inexperienced in boat work and their boat was caught in strong currents and capsized.

The dismantling of the viaduct was completed by November 1935, but sections of the pier foundations remained in the bed of the estuary. The section of railway between the south end of the viaduct and Kirkbride Junction was dismantled as part of the process.

The section of line between Abbey Junction and Brayton continued in use, as part of the Maryport and Carlisle section, until closure after 4 February 1933.

Passenger trains ceased operating on the northern section between Kirtlebridge and Annan from 27 April 1931. A twice-weekly goods service ran to Annan from the G&SWR line, reversing at a headshunt towards the former viaduct. This arrangement was discontinued in January 1955.[4]

Since closure

During World War II an RAF airfield was created near Creca, north of Annan, and part of the original line from Kirtlebridge to that point was reinstated.[6][7] The line was dismantled some time in the 1960s.

In 1959 Chapelcross nuclear power station was opened; the location is on the east side of the former line about half way between Kirtlebridge and Annan, close to the RAF station site. It is likely that the RAF station line was used to bring in construction materials. Liquid effluent from the power station was discharged into the Solway Firth at Annan and at least the final part of the railway alignment was used to route the effluent pipes. The power station has now been decommissioned.

Locomotives

The Solway Junction Railway decided from the outset to work its own line. It acquired four locomotives from Neilson and Company. Nos. 1 and 2 were 0-4-2 well tanks and nos. 3 and 4 were 0-4-2 tender engines. In 1868 two further locomotives were ordered; nos 5 and 6 were 0-6-0 tender engines, also from Neilson; they never bore their SJR numbers, going straight to the Caledonian Railway numbering series. The final locomotive considered to belong to the SJR route was a small-wheeled 0-6-0 saddle tank, built by Manning Wardle and acquired second hand for shunting work. In January 1872 it was disposed of to the Wigtownshire Railway.[4]

The route

The line ran south from Kirtlebridge on the Caledonian Railway Main Line through undulating country to Annan Shawhill station. The line descended to the Solway viaduct, and a west-to-south spur from the G&SWR Annan station trailed in. At the south side of the Solway, Bowness station was reached, and the line then passed across the marshy terrain, then reaching Whitrigg, before connecting with the Carlisle and Silloth Bay Railway at Kirkbride Junction. The through route used that railway as far as Abbey Junction, from where the Solway Junction Railway's own route ran via Bromfield to Brayton, where it joined the Maryport and Carlisle Railway route.[4]

Locations on the line were:

(Note: locations in italic were not passenger stations.)

Closure date

There are contradictory references to the date of final closure of the viaduct, but this was probably 1 September 1921. Clinker states that the entire line closed from 1917 to 1919,[9] and Stansfield states that "the service ... was suspended from January 1917 to March 1924", but this is refuted by Quick, who states that Bradshaw's Timetables for the period continued to show a passenger train service, and that no Railway Clearing House documentation for the closure was found. Clinker also states that the viaduct and lines in England closed from 20 May 1921, and Ross says (on page 185) that the "viaduct was officially declared closed from 20 May 1921", but this probably refers to a temporary suspension during the coal emergency.[8]

Connections to other lines

References

  1. 1 2 Gordon Stansfield, Dumfries & Galloway's Lost Railways, Stenlake Publishing, Catrine, ISBN 1 84033 057 0
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 David Ross, The Caledonian: Scotland's Imperial Railway: A History, Stenlake Publishing Limited, Catrine, 2014, ISBN 978 1840 335842
  3. 1 2 E F Carter, An Historical Geography of the Railways of the British Isles, Cassell, London, 1959
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Stuart Edgar and John M Sinton, The Solway Junction Railway, Oakwood Press, Headington, 1990, ISBN 0 85361 395 8
  5. ↑ Edgar and Sinton, page 9 is a photograph of an invitation to the cutting of the first sod on 28 March 1865, in which the chairman's name is given as "Alex. Brogden".
  6. ↑ Canmore site: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland: Annan Airfield
  7. ↑ Secret Scotland Website: RAF Annan
  8. 1 2 M E Quick, Railway Passenger Stations in England Scotland and Wales—A Chronology, The Railway and Canal Historical Society, 2002
  9. ↑ C R Clinker, Register of Closed Passenger Stations and Goods Depots in England, Scotland and Wales, self published by C R Clinker, 1964

Notes

  1. ↑ Nonetheless Edgar states (page 21) that "the Caledonian Railway Company had put forward most of the money for the construction of the line".
  2. ↑ From Edgar, page 14; but on page 10 he says that at the Parliamentary hearing it had been stated that there would be 74 piers, and a navigation span of 80 feet (24 m).
  3. ↑ Dates from Edgar; but he states (on page 19) that the "line was passed for goods traffic on 1st September 1869, and for passenger traffic on 8th July 1870". No explanation for the delay is offered by Edgar.
  4. ↑ From Edgar on page 21. The comment needs some interpretation. He says "Revenue decreased from £2,028 in 1874 to a loss of £574 in 1880 to service a capital of £360,000. Since "revenue" cannot be negative, he must intend to say "Profit decreased ...". Authorised debenture loans were £106,000 and in view of the capital shortage referred to must have been taken out. Interest on these at, say, 4%, would have been over £4,000 annually. It is not clear whether Edgar's figures are operating profit (receipts less working expenses) or net profit (operating profit less interest payments).
  5. ↑ From Edgar, page 28; it is not clear how fewer spans than piers had fallen.

Sources

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, January 27, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.