Fleetwood [1st]

Location type

Station

Name and dates

Fleetwood [1st] (1840-1851)

Note: text in square brackets is added for clarity and was not part of the location's name.

Opened on the Preston and Wyre Railway, Dock and Harbour.

Description

This terminus was part of a greater plan to develop a railway served port, a resort, and reclaim land. The port was intended to be used for steamers to Cumbria, the Isle of Man and Ireland.

The original terminus at Fleetwood was approached by a very long single track causeway across Wyre Water running north from Thornton to reach the tip of the peninsula. Some portions were built in timber as trestle bridges. The deeper channel of the River Wyre ran down the east side.

Having reached dry land there was space for the passenger station, which was by Dock Street and opposite Church Street, on a very short branch. The line then turned north east to follow the coastline a short way to reach a goods terminus alongside Queen's Terrace opposite the Town Hall. The Steam Parcel office was just to the south.

The stone for the causeway came from Heysham and the intention was to reclaim the enclosed mudflats and develop a dock. The causeway was very exposed and expensive to maintain. When doubling of the approach line was undertaken in 1851 the new northbound track was laid along the coastline from Burn Naze Junction instead of doubling the line on the causeway. The causeway line became the southbound line. Some time after 1851 the causeway was abandoned. The new approach was subsequently doubled in 1875.

Nonetheless long portions of the causeway survive and some of the proposed land reclamation has taken place. The dredged approach to the Wyre Dock [Dock] has cut through northernmost portion of the causeway, a timber portion.

Much of the first station site was to be used for the second station, Fleetwood [2nd], a reconstruction opened in 1851 with the new line south following the coast.

The goods station was to become Fleetwood [3rd].

The passenger station and goods station sites have been cleared having been used as a container ferry base since the 1970s. Nothing now remains alongside the infrequently used ferry port quay.

Tags

Station terminus

External links

NLS Collection OS map of 1892-1914
NLS Collection OS map of 1944-67
NLS Map
NLS Map
04/04/2018