The Ulverstone and Lancaster Railway was built by a separate company to link Ulverston with , on the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway thus giving a rail link southwards from Furness and West Cumbria to the West Coast Main Line so that - as the Earl of Burlington noted at a celebratory banquet marking the opening of the line on 26 August 1857 - they "were now joined in the great network of the rest of England", allowing a lucrative goods traffic: " A few days ago some 67 tons of pig iron, the produce of the new blast furnace at Harrington passed over the Whitehaven Junction and Whitehaven and Furness Railways "en route" direct to South Staffordshire by the newly-opened railway across the Ulverston Sands" In 1858, after completion of the U&LR, modifications were made to the junctions at Foxfield (with the W&FJR) and at Millwood (where the Broughton and Ulverston branches met) to allow through running of Whitehaven-Carnforth traffic without reversing.