The Furness section of the LMSR
MORE than 20 years have passed since any extended reference has been made in The Railway Magazine to the one-time Furness Railway.
The comparatively isolated position of the line has made it somewhat unfamiliar even to the railway student. A through traveller to Scotland by the West Coast route could get only passing glimpses of the Furness engines at Carnforth, and unless he were bound for some destination on the line itself, they were hardly likely to be seen by him anywhere else.
Throughout from Carnforth to Whitehaven, the main line follows the coast, and as would be expected pursues a very winding course. Although the Furness coast is nowhere very striking, some of the distant views are very fine, and include a number of the most famous peaks in the Lake District.
Leaving Carnforth by the sharply curved western platform, the line swings round almost at right-angles to the North-Western main line and joins the Carnforth-avoiding spur from the Midland. This connecting link is of great value in the working of mineral traffic to and from the Midland Division, and also of passenger specials from Leeds and other Yorkshire stations to Lakeside, the Furness station at the southern extremity of Windermere.
At low water, Morecambe Bay seems one dreary interminable stretch of sand; at high tide, however, it is very lovely
At first the railway runs through typical north-country pastoral scenery, passing Silverdale, until at Arnside comes the first of those wide sandy estuaries by which the Lakeland rivers enter the sea, that of the Kent. Crossing the river on a low viaduct, the passenger has a fine distant view of the fells to the north of Kendal. The prospect seawards varies. At low water Morecambe Bay seems one dreary interminable stretch of sand; at high tide, however, it is very lovely, especially at night, when moonlight on the water can make the scene enchanting.
Past Grange-over-Sands and Kent's Bank, the railway is carried just above the shore, winding its way round the base of Lindale Fell. These two charming watering places straggle up the steep, wooded hillside behind the railway, and look out across the bay on a wide-flung panorama of mountain and
