History of Engine Lonning.

Hadrian’s Wall and the Hadrian's Wall National Trail runs east west through Engine Lonning Nature Reserve. During the mid 1800’s when the site was being developed as a rail yard, Roman coins and a 2^nd Century gold necklace were found.

The Carlisle Canal.

The railway heritage of Engine Lonning curiously starts in 1823 when the Carlisle Canal was opened, linking the City with a small village on the Solway coast called Fishers Cross. The village was renamed Port Carlisle, and the City of Carlisle was now open to foreign and overseas trade. The canal was 18 feet wide at each of the eight locks along the route, and ran 11¼ miles to the Canal Basin in Carlisle, now the Port Road Business Park, just to the east of Engine Lonning Nature Reserve. This opened up international and domestic trade through the nearby port of Liverpool.

The area now known as the Port Road Business Park was once a thriving hub of foreign and domestic trade, with bonded warehouses, a customs house, timber yards, goods stations, a coal depot, livestock pens and much more.

The legacy of the Carlisle Canal can be seen today in the street names; Canal Court, Canal Bank, Port Road, and the Jovial Sailor Public House.

The Port Carlisle Railway.

The canal ran into difficulties and in 1853 it was drained and filled in by the Port Carlisle Railway Company, a railway line built on top of it and a passenger terminal built; Canal Station at Canal Basin in Carlisle (near the surgery off Caldcotes).

In 1854, a new deep water dock was created at Silloth, and the Port Carlisle Line was taken over by the Carlisle and Silloth Bay Railway and Dock Company, who extended the line from Drumburgh to Silloth. The old line from Drumburgh to Port Carlisle continued to run but with a horse drawn service.

In 1859, the Carlisle and Silloth Branch Line was sold to The North British Railway (NBR), and subsequently sold to the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923.

From the 1860’s to the 1960’s Engine Lonning and the surrounding area was a bustling rail freight and passenger terminal, with rail yards, engine sheds and engineering workshops.

At the south eastern corner of Engine Lonning Nature Reserve was Canal Junction/Port Carlisle Junction where the railways diverged into the Carlisle and Edinburgh Line and the Carlisle and Silloth Branch Line. Overlooking the junction was the four storey imposing Canal Junction Signal Box.

To the north east end of the Reserve there was a manure and bone works and a varnish works, both connected by rail to the Carlisle Edinburgh Line.

A series of rail sidings left the Edinburgh Line before it crossed the Eden, and ran westwards alongside the river to Canal Engine Shed.   This was a considerable structure, originally built of sandstone, with six rail lines running into it and a series of workshops within and around it.  To the south of the site was a turntable.

In the north western most corner there once stood ‘Engine House’, the former pump house for drawing up water from the nearby River Eden for refilling the steam locomotives.

The line closed in 1964, Canal Shed, Engine House and the other buildings and structures were demolished in 1966.

Hidden there amongst the undergrowth where nature claims her prize lay the ruins of The Carlisle Canal and the City’s once bustling railway heritage.