Settle Junction railway station


Settle Junction railway station was located near the town of Settle, North Yorkshire, England, immediately to south of the junction between the Midland Railway's North Western and Settle-Carlisle branches, northwest of.
It was opened five months after the main line to to serve as an "exchange station" with the older route to Morecambe. However, the expected traffic failed to materialise and after just one year of operation, it was closed on 1 November 1877.
Its remote location undoubtedly contributed to its early demise, as potential travellers had the choice of three alternative stations that were all more conveniently sited for their respective communities.

The site today

Little trace of the station remains today, although the station house survived in private ownership until well after nationalisation of the railways in 1948, finally succumbing to demolition in the late 1960s. Settle Junction signal box is still operational and can easily be seen from the adjacent A65, which runs alongside the railway at this point. The box houses a London Midland Region standard frame of 31 levers and controls the busy double junction between the two lines, as well as the block sections toward to the south, Blea Moor Sidings to the north and Station Junction to the north west.
The latter is the longest block section on the UK rail network at just over in length and severely restricts the capacity of the Carnforth line. Network Rail has acknowledged the performance issues this can cause in its 2008 Lancashire and Cumbria Route Utilisation Strategy and hopes to install additional signalling along the route at some point in the future to address the problem. The same strategy has recently been adopted to solve similar headway issues on the section to Blea Moor.