Bare Lane railway station

Bare Lane railway station serves the village of Bare, which is a suburb of Morecambe in Lancashire, England. It is located on the Morecambe Branch Line from Lancaster to Heysham Port and was opened by the London and North Western Railway in 1864.

Bare Lane
LocationBare, Lancaster
England
Coordinates54.075°N 2.836°W / 54.075; -2.836
Grid referenceSD454646
Managed byNorthern Trains
Platforms2
Other information
Station codeBAR
ClassificationDfT category F1
History
Original companyLondon and North Western Railway
Post-groupingLondon Midland and Scottish Railway
Key dates
8 August 1864Opened as Poulton-le-Sands[1]
31 October 1864Renamed Bare Lane[1]
Passengers
2015/16 0.188 million
2016/17 0.180 million
2017/18 0.155 million
2018/19 0.138 million
2019/20 0.137 million
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

A level crossing with the public highway known as Bare Lane exists immediately to the west of the station, which until recently was controlled by the adjacent Bare Lane signal box, a fringe cabin to the Preston PSB Area. This box was closed on 8 December 2012,[2] when the signalling equipment was renewed by Network Rail and control of the crossing switched to CCTV and transferred to Preston power box.[3]

The old station building on the platform is now a private dwelling. It was auctioned to the public, and was featured on the BBC programme Homes Under the Hammer, a show about buildings which are auctioned to the public and redeveloped.

The station in 1962

Layout

Although the station has two side platforms, the track layout through it is not the conventional double track used on most main & secondary routes, but two independent bi-directional single lines. Platform 1 serves the Up & Down Morecambe line (which is in effect a long siding all the way to the terminus), whilst platform 2 handles trains on what is now the Up & Down Heysham line. The latter is connected to the now-single track branch down to Heysham Port at Holt Bank Junction (just outside Morecambe station), with the junction points operated from a ground frame worked by the train crew. The two lines converge east of the station, but then immediately split into the single line curves toward Hest Bank and towards Lancaster; the former sees only limited use, whereas the latter was double track until 1988 and is used by the vast majority of trains on the route.

This layout dates from the closure of the former terminus at Morecambe Promenade and its associated signal box in February 1994, with Bare Lane signal box taking over control of all signalling on the line thereafter (other than that controlling the junctions with the main line at Hest Bank). As mentioned above however, it was closed in December 2012. The structure remained intact for another year and had been used for several months by Northern staff as a manned help point for travellers due to the absence of digital passenger information screens at the station.[4] It was eventually demolished in January 2014 after the PIS screens were installed and finally brought into use.[5]

The station is unstaffed and had no ticket facilities of any kind until recently - Northern has now installed a ticket vending machine as part of a programme of station improvements in the area. Waiting shelters are provided and both platforms have step-free access.[6]

Services
Route 7:
Bentham Line and
Settle & Carlisle Line
 Carlisle
 Armathwaite
 Lazonby and Kirkoswald
 Langwathby
 Appleby
 Kirkby Stephen
 Garsdale
 Dent
 Ribblehead
 Horton-in-Ribblesdale
 Settle
Heysham Port
Morecambe
 Bare Lane
 Lancaster
 Carnforth
 Wennington
 Bentham
 Clapham
 Giggleswick
Long Preston
 Hellifield
 Gargrave
 Skipton
 Keighley
Bingley
 Shipley
 Leeds
Morecambe,
Lancaster & Heysham Port
Bare Lane
Morecambe
Heysham Port
Lancaster

The station is served by Northern Trains local services, which operate as a regular (hourly with some peak extras) Lancaster-Morecambe shuttle.[7] One return service throughout the week is extended to and from Heysham Port to meet the daily ferry to the Isle of Man.

There are also a few longer-distance services (currently five per day Mon-Sat and on Sundays also since December 2019) from Morecambe to Skipton and Leeds via the Leeds to Morecambe Line.[8] In addition, for many years the last train each weekday evening was a First TransPennine Express service from Windermere, which diverted from its route to Barrow-in-Furness. This service called at Lancaster, Bare Lane and Morecambe, before reversing, calling at Bare Lane again, then rejoining the West Coast Main Line and continuing via Carnforth thus avoiding the 1m 7ch section of the WCML between Hest Bank South Junction and Hest Bank North Junction. This was the only scheduled service to use the original 1864 curve towards Hest Bank and as such functioned as a Parliamentary train to avoid the need for formal closure proceedings for this short stretch of line. In the present (May 2019) timetable, just one early a.m Lancaster to Morecambe via Carnforth train takes this route to meet the TOC's franchise obligations.[7]

Preceding station National Rail Following station
Lancaster   Northern Trains
Leeds to Morecambe Line
& Morecambe Branch Line		   Morecambe
Carnforth
(limited service)		    
  Historical railways  
Lancaster Castle   London and North Western Railway
Morecambe Branch Line		   Morecambe Euston Road
until 1963
Hest Bank     Morecambe Promenade
from 1958

References
  1. Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 190. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199.
  2. "Bare Lane signal box pictured on 7 December 2012, shortly before closure". Railscot. Retrieved 22 December 2012.
  3. "NR Bare Lane box closure proposals & TOC responses". Network Rail. Retrieved 26 May 2011.
  4. "Photo of interior of decommissioned signal box in July 2013". Railscot. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  5. "Bare Lane station on 22 January 2014 after demolition of the signal box". Railscot. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  6. "Bare Lane station facilities". National Rail Enquiries. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  7. GB National Rail Timetable May 2019, Table 98
  8. Table 42 National Rail timetable, December 2019
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