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The Garstang to Knott End Railway

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In January 2020, my wife and I stayed, once again, to the Southeast of the City of Lancaster and explored the area between the Line estuary and the Wyre estuary. It is a superb area for watching overwintering birds!

It gave me another opportunity to look at railways in the area. After a visit in November 2019 when I explored the Glasson Dock branch, this time I took the chance to explore the railway which linked Knott End at the mouth of the River Wyre with the West Coast mainline near Garstang.

The first of two articles can be read by following the link below. ....

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2020/01/28/the-garstang-and-knott-end-railway-part-1

The area across the River Wyre from Fleetwood was, for many years, quite isolated. There was a ferry across the river to Fleetwood, which still operates in the 21st century, otherwise, narrow un-metalled roads had to suffice.

The local community, particularly those with agricultural interests, were determined to have a railway. The line was built between Garstang and Pilling by those local agricultural interests to develop unproductive land. It had been intended to continue to Knott End but the company ran out of money. It eventually opened between Garstang and Pilling in 1870.
 
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Calthrop

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Very interesting and appealing material -- thank you. I've always had a fondness for the Knott End line, a quintessentially out-of-the-way and on the "light" side, branch; and with its having been independent until the Grouping -- at which, I learn, it was the LMS's smallest constituent railway company. (One feels that the line would have been a "natural" for being one of Colonel Stephens's flock; except for his having, essentially, done his stuff in the more southerly parts of Britain.)

You include mentions of the line's local nickname, the "Pilling Pig": from, I gather, the shrill squeal of the loco's whistle. I recall a chap whom I knew at university, in the late 1960s, who came from those parts. I mentioned to him that though I'd not been to that area, I knew of it, from my railway interest and thus knowing about the local line. He said, "Ah ! The Pilling Pig" -- which would suggest that the name was current locally, pretty well up to the mid-60s final abandonment of the -- for long, freight-only -- remaining eastern part of the line. The lad (who had no interest in railway matters as such) quoted the name completely "off his own bat": prompting one of the moments I sometimes get, of feeling a bit relieved at an indication that it is not so -- re which, I sometimes whimsically wonder -- that people like us are head-cases who share a collaborative fantasy about obscure railways which in fact never existed at all !
 
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Calthrop, I always appreciate your comments which add so much anecdotal detail and make these threads so much richer. Kind regards and best wishes for 2020.

Roger
 

Dr_Paul

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Great stuff! I bought the Oakwood book on this line some years back, I find these obscure branches fascinating. There were some, let us say, peculiar operating procedures on this line, which I suspect Roger will describe in the next part of this article.
 

Calthrop

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Calthrop, I always appreciate your comments which add so much anecdotal detail and make these threads so much richer. Kind regards and best wishes for 2020.

Roger

Thank you for your kind words; and the same to you.

A "trivia" item about the Garstang -- Knott End line which I like: concerns a coach with "veranda" or "balcony" ends, built by a Lancaster firm, of which the railway took delivery in 1908 -- presumably connected with the opening that year, of the Pilling to Knott End extension. After the LMS withdrew passenger services on the Knott End line in 1930, they transferred this coach for use on their branch to Leadhills and Wanlockhead in southern Scotland (which line reached the highest altitude on any standard-gauge public line in Great Britain) -- that branch in turn closed by the LMS at the beginning of 1939. I gather that there were other instances in the Grouping era, of members of the Big Four swopping-and-switching between different branches which they owned, toward the "light railway" end of the spectrum: coaching stock suitable for use at rather rudimentary halts.
 
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Great stuff! I bought the Oakwood book on this line some years back, I find these obscure branches fascinating. There were some, let us say, peculiar operating procedures on this line, which I suspect Roger will describe in the next part of this article.

Hi Dr Paul
Give me a clue about what you have in mind!
Best wishes
Roger
 

Fleetwood Boy

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Very interesting and appealing material -- thank you. I've always had a fondness for the Knott End line, a quintessentially out-of-the-way and on the "light" side, branch; and with its having been independent until the Grouping -- at which, I learn, it was the LMS's smallest constituent railway company. (One feels that the line would have been a "natural" for being one of Colonel Stephens's flock; except for his having, essentially, done his stuff in the more southerly parts of Britain.)

You include mentions of the line's local nickname, the "Pilling Pig": from, I gather, the shrill squeal of the loco's whistle. I recall a chap whom I knew at university, in the late 1960s, who came from those parts. I mentioned to him that though I'd not been to that area, I knew of it, from my railway interest and thus knowing about the local line. He said, "Ah ! The Pilling Pig" -- which would suggest that the name was current locally, pretty well up to the mid-60s final abandonment of the -- for long, freight-only -- remaining eastern part of the line. The lad (who had no interest in railway matters as such) quoted the name completely "off his own bat": prompting one of the moments I sometimes get, of feeling a bit relieved at an indication that it is not so -- re which, I sometimes whimsically wonder -- that people like us are head-cases who share a collaborative fantasy about obscure railways which in fact never existed at all !
My parents, who were not particularly "railway enthusiasts", always talked about the Pilling Pig, so it must have been a well-used local epithet.
 

Springs Branch

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My parents, who were not particularly "railway enthusiasts", always talked about the Pilling Pig, so it must have been a well-used local epithet.
I remember listening in on a conversation during a family get-together with aunts and uncles in the late 1960s or very early 1970s.

The topic was the rundown of British Railways, and how the last wayside stations at Coppull and Garstang had recently been closed. Someone commented "Oh yes, Garstang - isn't that where the Pilling Pig ran from".

Pilling Pig was an unusual name, which stuck in my memory.

The funny thing is these relatives, plus my father and grandparents, were all from Leyland - the diametrically opposite side of Preston and a good few miles from where you'd expect locals might have known the Pilling Pig nickname. And the person making that comment was my aunt (not by any means a railway enthusiast).
 

furnessvale

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My parents, who were not particularly "railway enthusiasts", always talked about the Pilling Pig, so it must have been a well-used local epithet.
It certainly was. My brother was on the footplate in steam days and fired the "Pilling Pig" regularly when he was in that link.
 

Calthrop

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Re the nickname's popularity and widespread acquaintedness-with: I suppose people tend to like alliteration -- and pigs :smile:.
 

randyrippley

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The funny thing is the "Pilling Pig" was actually just one loco - an 1875 Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0ST named "Farmers Friend" which seems to have only lasted until 1900, yet the name was still known in the 1960s despite passenger services stopping in the 1930s
 
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Calthrop

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The funny thing is the "Pilling Pig" was actually just one loco - an 1875 Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0ST named "Farmers Friend" which seems to have only lasted until 1900, yet the name was still known in the 1960s despite passenger services stopping in the 1930s

Do I take it that this is the loco in the picture which heads Roger's article?
 

randyrippley

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Do I take it that this is the loco in the picture which heads Roger's article?
According to this article by the Blackpool "Gazette" its either "Farmers Friend" or "Hope"
https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/reviving-forgotten-lancashire-rail-route-dream-1154369

This on the wiki page is said to be "Farmers Friend"
Flue seems to have more of a taper on it and the cab looks different, but over 25 years these could have been changed
Pilling-pig.jpg

Garstang_and_Knot-End_Railway


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garstang_and_Knot-End_Railway
 
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randyrippley

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The American style veranda coaches were built by the Lancaster Carriage & Wagon Co
 

randyrippley

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Thank you for your kind words; and the same to you.

A "trivia" item about the Garstang -- Knott End line which I like: concerns a coach with "veranda" or "balcony" ends, built by a Lancaster firm, of which the railway took delivery in 1908 -- presumably connected with the opening that year, of the Pilling to Knott End extension. After the LMS withdrew passenger services on the Knott End line in 1930, they transferred this coach for use on their branch to Leadhills and Wanlockhead in southern Scotland (which line reached the highest altitude on any standard-gauge public line in Great Britain) -- that branch in turn closed by the LMS at the beginning of 1939. I gather that there were other instances in the Grouping era, of members of the Big Four swopping-and-switching between different branches which they owned, toward the "light railway" end of the spectrum: coaching stock suitable for use at rather rudimentary halts.

The Lancaster Carriage & Wagon Co closed in 1908, and the last orders were for wagons not coaches so I suspect the veranda coaches (there were more than one) were delivered earlier
 

Dr_Paul

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Hi Dr Paul -- Give me a clue about what you have in mind! Best wishes Roger

I don't have the book to hand at the moment, but I have a feeling that some freight operations involved dropping off wagons at various points along the line going towards Knott End for unloading and/or loading, and then picking them on the return to Garstang by coupling them one by one in front of the loco and pushing them.
 

randyrippley

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I don't have the book to hand at the moment, but I have a feeling that some freight operations involved dropping off wagons at various points along the line going towards Knott End for unloading and/or loading, and then picking them on the return to Garstang by coupling them one by one in front of the loco and pushing them.
Read the links I posted above, they add to your comments
 
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I don't have the book to hand at the moment, but I have a feeling that some freight operations involved dropping off wagons at various points along the line going towards Knott End for unloading and/or loading, and then picking them on the return to Garstang by coupling them one by one in front of the loco and pushing them.

Yes Dr_Paul. That was the practice.
 
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This is my second article about the line between Knott End and Garstang. It completes the full length of the line. I am very grateful to a number of people for permission given to publish their photographs as part of the article. You will see their pictures referenced throughout.

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2020/02/08/the-garstang-and-knott-end-railway-part-2/

I hope that I will get round to publishing one further article about the motive power and rolling stock on the line.

The featured image for this article is a Garstang & Knot End Railway cast iron Trespass Sign dated December 1899. GW Railwayana Auctions described it as "A Grade 1 cast iron sign that hasn't appeared for sale or publicly before and the most significant cast iron find of this century. The sign was acquired by the vendor in the 1960's and was from Cogie Hill Halt which was on the section between Pilling and Garstang Town which closed in July 1963. Nicely restored measures 24in x 15in." It sold in November 2019 for £3,800.

Pilling Station was the most westerly point on the Garstang and Knott End Railway from the completion of the first phase of its construction in 1870 until the eventual construction of the line through to Knott End in 1908. It was actually placed in the hamlet of Stakepool around a mile from Pilling itself.

As noted in the previous article about the line, locomotives had to cross into the road junction at the West end of the station site in order to run round their trains. The station site was approximately as drawn on the adapted OS Map extract.
 
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Calthrop

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@rogerfarnworth -- as usual, interest-packed: thanks. For me, the "period" photographs were especially fascinating -- loved the one of the tiny 0-4-2ST Hebe, the railway's first and, initially, only loco. This line really should -- pace a bit of geographical displacement -- have been one of Colonel Stephens's !

An incidental item, in the "pay attention to what you're looking at" line: at my first rapid look at the present-day pictures featuring the site of Nateby station, I saw long pale-coloured formations stretching across the horizon, and thought "Good gracious ! Lake District high ground !" A second, more deliberate look, and actual caption-reading, made me aware that the view was taken looking south-eastward; and that the pale things were clouds :oops: .
 

randyrippley

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@rogerfarnworth ............an incidental item, in the "pay attention to what you're looking at" line: at my first rapid look at the present-day pictures featuring the site of Nateby station, I saw long pale-coloured formations stretching across the horizon, and thought "Good gracious ! Lake District high ground !" A second, more deliberate look, and actual caption-reading, made me aware that the view was taken looking south-eastward; and that the pale things were clouds :oops: .

You're actually looking at the fells of Bowland Forest, so you are looking at high ground
 

Calthrop

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You're actually looking at the fells of Bowland Forest, so you are looking at high ground

Ah, right -- my geographical confusion compounds itself... though my initial misidentification did involve the clouds, and caused me to imagine southern Lakeland; while the shot was taken looking in the opposite direction therefrom. The hills which can be seen in the pic -- I'd think them, from the atlas, as being the moors south-east of Preston: does that area count as Bowland Forest? (I'm thoroughly a southerner, and ignorant, with little first-hand acquaintance with the regions concerned -- am enquiring, not disputing.)
 

randyrippley

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Ah, right -- my geographical confusion compounds itself... though my initial misidentification did involve the clouds, and caused me to imagine southern Lakeland; while the shot was taken looking in the opposite direction therefrom. The hills which can be seen in the pic -- I'd think them, from the atlas, as being the moors south-east of Preston: does that area count as Bowland Forest? (I'm thoroughly a southerner, and ignorant, with little first-hand acquaintance with the regions concerned -- am enquiring, not disputing.)

The area you're thinking of are the West Pennine Moors - the area south of the M65. I think that photo is looking further north, to the east of Garstang in the direction of Beacon Fell and Bleasdale. Bowland is roughly the high ground east of the M6, bordered by the River Lune to the north and the Ribble to the south
 

Calthrop

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Ah -- clueless Southron that I am, I get lost with these subtleties. Sometimes on these Forums, pronunciation is argued about -- in a thread not hugely long ago, in which I took part re stuff in these parts: there was aired the oddity that the Forest involved here is spelt "Bowland", but sometimes pronounced "Bolland". (Also threatening to come in here, the engaging published fantasy tale, by "BB", The Forest of Boland Light Railway: in which the gnomes dwelling in said forest, invent the steam-worked railway -- centuries before humans do same in their sphere of activity.)
 
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