The signal to the right was the home at Moor Lane Junction for the 'Land Owners' branch which can be seen leading off to the right. The picture was taken from a passing train in October 1964. By this date the branch had been out of use for many years.
Photo by Neville Conroy

The 'Landowners Branch' was a ¾-mile single-track branch that ran from Moor Lane Junction on the Sheffield & Midland Joint Railway - Widnes Branch (later the Great Central & Midland Joint), to the Broughton Copper Works on Ditton Road. The line probably saw its first traffic on 1 July 1879. It was built without a specific authorising Act at the instigation, and with the support, of a number of prominent landowning industrialists who wanted access to the Widnes Branch. It was the involvement of the landowners that gave the branch its name.

The branch was fairly simple being mostly on an embankment. It crossed Ditton Road by a single-span iron bridge and terminated at the west end of the copper works. From the branch another line diverged at the eastern end of the copper works and ran parallel to Ditton Road in an eastward direction for about half-a-mile.

Other than at the Moor Lane end the line was not signalled and was initially worked by tickets. From 30 March 1903 ticket working was dispensed with, in favour of working by pilot guard.

The line was only ever used for goods. At the grouping in 1923 it became jointly owned by the London, Midland & Scottish and the London & North Eastern Railway passing to the British Railways London Midland Region in January 1948. It was deleted from the sectional appendix on 1 June 1963, but it is likely that it had fallen into disuse well before then.

After closure nearly all traces of the line were swept away. A few remnants of the line could still be seen in 2012 along Ditton Road.