The Morecambe branch line is a railway line in Lancashire, England, from Lancaster to Morecambe and Heysham, where trains connect with ferries to Douglas, Isle of Man. To reach Heysham, trains must reverse at Morecambe.
Almost all passenger services are operated by Northern. Most are shuttles between Lancaster and Morecambe, with only a limited service through to Heysham to connect with the ferries, primarily using Class 153 or Class 156 diesel multiple units. A few services continue beyond Lancaster to Skipton and Leeds (see Leeds–Morecambe line), and generally use Class 150 and (since December 2019) Class 158 units.
Since 1994 the two tracks between Bare Lane and Morecambe have been operated as two independent single lines, with no connection between them beyond Bare Lane. Only the southern line is connected to the Heysham branch.
The line also sees freight trains operated by Direct Rail Services, which serve Heysham nuclear power station.
History
Early years
The route is a fusion of lines opened by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), the "little" North Western Railway (NWR) and the Midland Railway, which built the branch to Heysham Harbour and Morecambe Promenade terminus after it took over the NWR in 1874.
The first proposals for a branch from Morecambe to the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway (L&C) at Hest Bank were put forward by the Morecambe Harbour and Railway Company (a constituent company of the NWR) in 1846 but these were soon dropped on cost grounds. The L&C revived the scheme in 1858, with the intention of using the NWR's harbour facilities (suitably expanded) to export coke & iron ore from the North East, brought in via the South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway and the L&C main line. The NWR opposed the plans as it would lose its monopoly on traffic into the town, but its shaky finances eventually led it to reach an agreement with the L&C that would allow the latter to build its line but not require the associated harbour improvements to be carried out. The three-mile branch, including a link to the NWR station at Northumberland Street, was opened in August 1864. The hoped-for mineral traffic did not materialise and the route remained a modest branch, although the LNWR did have to provide its own station at Poulton Lane from November 1870 because of increasing congestion at Northumberland Street. This was replaced by a rather more substantial terminus at nearby Euston Road in 1886 as part of an improvement scheme that also saw the construction of a west-to-south curve from Bare Lane to join the WCML at Morecambe South Junction (opened in 1888), which permitted through running to without the need for a reversal, and hence gave access for longer-distance trains to places such as Manchester, Liverpool and London. The branch was also doubled (apart from the Hest Bank to Bare Lane curve) and a regular local service introduced between Euston Road and Lancaster Castle to complement that to/from Hest Bank. Despite these improvements and a journey time similar to the older route, the Midland line continued to carry most of the traffic to and from the town, especially after it was electrified in 1908 (see below).
The branch became more important after the 1923 Grouping, with a London Euston to Heysham boat train commencing in 1928 – this ran to Promenade station, where it reversed for its journey to Heysham to meet the Belfast boat. Euston Road remained much quieter than Promenade for most of the year, though it did come into its own in the summer months when the regular local trains to Lancaster, and were supplemented by a large number of seasonal through trains to destinations such as , , Birmingham New Street, Manchester Victoria and London Euston.
Electrification
The Midland line was used for an early trial of electrification, opened between 13 April and 14 September 1908 using 6600 V AC at 25 Hz. In 1953, it was converted to 50 Hz as a trial, and this experiment led to the 25 kV, 50 Hz system becoming standard for new electrification. Latterly, former LNWR Euston to Watford EMU's ran on the Morecambe and Heysham line, converted to AC overhead operation. The branch remained electrified until it closed in 1966.