Notes: Garstang Road Halt was opened by the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) in October 1923 to serve a railmotor service that ran between Garstang & Catterall and Knott End (click here to see a quarter-inch scale OS map of the line as it was in 1920). The halt was situated on the 11 mile 29 chain single track Garstang and Knott End branch line that had opened in two stages, from Garstang & Catterall to Pilling on 5 December 1870 and from Pilling to Knott End on 29 July 1908. The first section of the line, including the section through Garstang Road, had been opened by the Garstang & Knot [sic] End Railway (G&KER) and the second section by the Knott End Railway (KER). The G&KER had struggled financially from the very beginning and it went into recievership in 1878. As the G&KER could not afford to extend to Knott End the KER was formed to perform that task and it bought the G&KER on 1 July 1908. The KER was grouped into the LMS on 1 January 1923.
Garstang Road passed over the line by means of a level crossing and the halt was located to the east of it. It was less than a mile to the east of Pilling station.
There was a crossing keeper’s cottage at Garstang Road which was also located on the east side of the road and on the south side of the line. It dated to the opening of the line in 1870. The halt was opposite the cottage on the north side of the line. A short platform was provided on the north side of the line.
At the time of opening there were seven trains to Knott End, one to Pilling and eight to Garstang & Catterall on weekdays.
In the period when Garstang Road Halt was opened road transport was already having an effect on railway passenger numbers and by the late 1920s the service was uneconomic. The LMS withdrew the passenger service from 31 March 1930. The platform was allowed to degrade after closure but the waiting shelter survived into the 1960s.
Goods services continued to operate on the line but from 13 November 1950, by which time the line was part of British Railways, the section of line between Knott End and Pilling was closed. Services between Garstang Town and Pilling ceased from 1 August 1963 and the track was lifted shortly afterwards.
The crossing keeper’s cottage survived the closure and became a private residence.
Route map by Alan Young
Sources:
- Awdry, C British railway companies (Guild Publishing,1990)
- Clinker, C R Clinker’s register of closed passenger stations and goods depots in England, Scotland and Wales 1830-1977 (Avon-Anglia,1978)
- Cobb, M H The Railways of Great Britain – vol.1 (Third Edition) (Author, 2015)
- Holt, G O A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain – vol.10 (David & Charles, 1978)
- Quick, Michael Railway passenger stations in Great Britain - a chronology (RCHS, 2009 and on-line supplements)
- Richardson, D The Pilling Pig - A History of the Garstang and Knott End Railway (Cumbrian Railways Association, 2019)
To see the
other closed of the Knott End Branch
click on the station name: Garstang & Catterill, Garstang Town, Nateby, Cogie Hill, Cockerham Cross, Pilling, Carr Lane, Preesall and Knott End
Click here to see Register of Closed Railways 1901 - 1994 |