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
2nd 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.