Morecambe Branch Line

The Morecambe Branch Line is a railway line in Lancashire, England, from Lancaster to Morecambe and Heysham, where trains connect with ferries to Douglas, Isle of Man. To reach Heysham, trains must reverse at Morecambe.

Almost all passenger services are operated by Northern Rail. Most are shuttles between Lancaster and Morecambe, continuing to Heysham only to connect with ferries, primarily using Class 142, Class 153 or Class 156 diesel multiple units. A few services continue beyond Lancaster to Skipton and Leeds (see Leeds-Morecambe Line), and generally use Class 144 or Class 150 units.

The first train each weekday is a Transpennine Express service from Barrow to Windermere, which reverses at Lancaster, leaves the West Coast Main Line (WCML) at Hest Bank South Junction, calls at Bare Lane and reverses at Morecambe, calls at Bare Lane again and rejoins the WCML at Hest Bank North Junction and continues to Oxenholme. It provides a token parliamentary service over the Bare Lane to Hest Bank curve. Prior to the December 2008 timetable change it ran Windermere - Lancaster - Morecambe - Barrow in the late evening. A weekday and summer Sunday afternoon train from Morecambe to Leeds is also scheduled to use the curve.

Since 1994 the two tracks between Bare Lane and Morecambe have been operated as two independent single lines, with no connection between them beyond Bare Lane. Only the southern line is connected to the Heysham branch.

The line also sees freight trains operated by Direct Rail Services, which serve Heysham nuclear power station.

History
The route is a fusion of lines opened by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), the "little" North Western Railway (NWR) and the Midland Railway, which built the branch to Heysham Harbour and Morecambe Promenade terminus after it took over the NWR in 1874.

The first proposals for a branch from Morecambe to the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway (L&C) at Hest Bank were put forward by the Morecambe Harbour and Railway Company (a constituent company of the NWR) in 1846 but these were soon dropped on cost grounds. The L&C revived the scheme in 1858, with the intention of using the NWR's harbour facilities (suitably expanded) to export coke & iron ore from the North East, brought in via the South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway and the L&C main line. The NWR opposed the plans as it would lose its monopoly on traffic into the town, but its shaky finances eventually led it to reach an agreement with the L&C that would allow the latter to build its line but not require the associated harbour improvements to be carried out. The three-mile branch, including a link to the NWR station at Northumberland Street, was opened in August 1864. The hoped-for mineral traffic did not materialise and the route remained a modest branch, although the LNWR did have to provide its own station at Poulton Lane because of increasing congestion at Northumberland Street. This was replaced by a rather more substantial terminus at Euston Road in 1886 as part of an improvement scheme that also saw the construction of a west-to-south curve from Bare Lane to join the WCML at Morecambe South Junction (opened in 1888), which permitted through running to Lancaster Castle without the need for a reversal, and hence gave access for longer-distance trains to places such as Manchester, Liverpool and London. The branch was also doubled, apart from the Hest Bank to Bare Lane curve. Despite this, the Midland route continued to carry most of the traffic to and from the town, especially after it was electrified in 1908 – see below.

The branch became more important after the 1923 Grouping, with a London Euston to Heysham boat train commencing in 1928 – this ran to Promenade station, where it reversed for its journey to Heysham to meet the Belfast boat. Euston Road remained much quieter than Promenade (although it did come into its own in the summer months) and it was the obvious one to be closed when traffic to the resort began to decline in the 1950s. Scheduled trains were diverted to Promenade from 15 September 1958, although Euston Road remained in seasonal use until complete closure on 30 September 1962.

The biggest changes to the route came later in the decade, as the Beeching Report recommended that it should be kept open rather than the Midland line to Lancaster Green Ayre, even though the latter was electrified. On 3 January 1966 the Midland line closed to passengers and a replacement DMU shuttle began to and from Lancaster Castle. Trains from Leeds and Skipton were diverted via Carnforth, Hest Bank and the original 1864 north curve to Morecambe. The only ex-Midland facilities to survive were the terminus at Promenade and the 1904 Heysham branch, which was retained to serve the ferry terminal. It lost its passenger trains in October 1975, following the withdrawal of Belfast sailings earlier that year.

In May 1987 services from Leeds were diverted to run via Lancaster (with a reversal) rather than directly via Hest Bank, and the Heysham branch was reopened to passengers in connection with the daily sailing to the Isle of Man. Promenade was replaced by a smaller station closer to the town centre in 1994 and the Heysham line singled under the control of the signal box at Bare Lane.

The Midland line was used for an early trial of electrification, opened between 13 April and 14 September 1908 using 6600 V AC at 25 Hz. In 1953 it was converted to 50 Hz as a trial, and this experiment led to the 25 kV, 50 Hz system becoming standard for new electrification. The branch was electrified until it closed in 1966.