Micklam railway station
# Micklam railway station

vteLowca Light Railway and Gilgarran Branch :

Legend :

1972 :

Micklam railway station served the fireclay mine and brickworks at Micklam, a short distance north of Lowca in the former county of Cumberland, England, which is now part of Cumbria.

A public passenger service called at the station between 2 June 1913 and May 1926, though unadvertised workmen's trains had started in April 1912 and continued until April 1929, after which all forms of passenger service ceased.

By 1922 the service had settled down to three trains each way between Lowca and Workington Central, calling at Micklam. There was an extra on Saturdays, but it passed through Micklam without stopping.. There never was a public Sunday service.

The station was on the Harrington and Lowca Light Railway which connected with the Cleator & Workington Junction Railway (CWJR) at Rosehill Junction south of Harrington Village. Workmen's services to and from Micklam variously ran from Moss Bay Cart Siding, Maryport (during the First World War), Workington Central and Seaton (Cumbria). Public passenger trains ran to these last two only.

## Freight services

The railway through Micklam was first and foremost a mineral railway, with the short-lived workmen's and passenger services an afterthought. Lines first reached the site at the end of the Nineteenth Century, eventually running northwards towards Workington and southeastwards to meet the Gilgarran Branch at Bain's Siding. The driving forces were coal at Lowca, fireclay and bricks (primarily aimed at lining furnaces at Workington's steelworks), coke and coking bi-products. Centrepiece for over fifty years was Harrington No. 10 Colliery which, confusingly, was not in Harrington, but in Lowca.

A seldom-photographed 2 feet 6 inches (760 mm) railway emerged from the fireclay drift mine then ran parallel to the Lowca Light railway along the clifftop to Micklam brickworks.

Between them these industrial concerns sustained the railway through Micklam until final closure to all traffic in May 1973.

| Preceding station | Disused railways | Following station |
| - | - | - |
| Copperas Hill Line and station closed | Lowca Light Railway | Lowca Line and station closed |
