Kendal and Windermere Railway

Windermere Railway Station

Kendal and Windermere Railway today Windermere Branch Line
Legend Windermere Staveley Burneside Kendal WCML to the north Oxenholme WCML towards the south

The Kendal and Windermere Railway was a subsidiary of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway , from whose railway line the connection in Oxenholme branched off. The railway line owes its existence to uncertainties in the planning of the railway line between Lancaster and Carlisle . The route was supposed to connect the town of Kendal , but this would have made it necessary to build a tunnel 4 km in length north of Kendal. The connection to Carlisle was finally led east to Kendal in its route, which still exists today as the West Coast Main Line . It was decided to continue the rail connection from Kendal in the direction of Windermere . With Windermere was at that time at the lake Windermere been thought, but the railroad ended in a place that was still Birth Waite said, and only later to the place Windermere has been renamed. The originally double-track line was reduced to one track between its branch in Oxenholme and Windermere , but the line is still in operation and is now the Windermere Branch Line , whose train connections are operated by TransPennine Express .

The railway line was established by the British Parliament in 1845 through the Kendal and Windermere Railway Act , but it met with opposition from the people of the Lake District. The most prominent opponent of the railway line was the poet William Wordsworth .
Wordsworth wrote a letter to the editor of the Morning Post , starting with a sonnet under the heading On the Projected Kendal and Windermere Railway :

Is then no nook of English ground secure
From rash assault? * Schemes of retirement sown
In youth, and 'mid the busy world kept pure
As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown,
Must perish; - how can this blight endure?
And must he too the ruthless change bemoan
Who scorns a false utilitarian lure
'Mid his paternal fields at random thrown?
Baffle the threat, bright scene, from Orrest-head
Given to the pausing traveler's rapturous glance:
Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance
Of nature; and, if human hearts be dead,
Speak, passing winds; ye torrents, with your strong
and constant voice, protest against the wrong.

Despite protests against the railway, Windermere station was opened in a second construction phase after Kendal station in 1847.

Web links

1. ^ On the Projected Kendal and Windermere Railway with German translation