Sellafield railway station serves the nuclear

Nuclear engineering

Nuclear engineering is the branch of engineering concerned with the application of the breakdown as well as the fusion of atomic nuclei and/or the application of other sub-atomic physics, based on the principles of nuclear physics...

 facility of Sellafield

Sellafield

Sellafield is a nuclear reprocessing site, close to the village of Seascale on the coast of the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England. The site is served by Sellafield railway station. Sellafield is an off-shoot from the original nuclear reactor site at Windscale which is currently undergoing...

 in Cumbria

Cumbria

Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The railway station

Train station

A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...

 is a stop on the scenic Cumbrian Coast Line

Cumbrian Coast Line

The Cumbrian Coast Line is a rail route in North West England, running from Carlisle to Barrow-in-Furness via Workington and Whitehaven. The line forms part of Network Rail route NW 4033, which continues via Ulverston and Grange-over-Sands to Carnforth, where it connects with the West Coast Main...

. Some through trains to the Furness Line

Furness Line

The Furness Line, in North West England, runs from Barrow-in-Furness to Ulverston and Grange-over-Sands, connecting with the West Coast Main Line at Carnforth...

 stop here. It is operated by Northern Rail

Northern Rail

Northern Rail is a British train operating company that has operated local passenger services in Northern England since 2004. Northern Rail's owner, Serco-Abellio, is a consortium formed of Abellio and Serco, an international operator of public transport systems...

 who provide all passenger train services.

The station (which dates from 1850) is a busy freight location, as much of the nuclear waste for Sellafield's Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant

Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant

The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, or THORP, is a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, England. THORP is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and operated by Sellafield Ltd...

 is carried by train here from the docks in Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...

 or from rail-connected nuclear power stations elsewhere in the UK.

The station marks the end of the single line section from Whitehaven

Whitehaven railway station

Whitehaven Railway Station serves the town of Whitehaven in Cumbria, England. The railway station is a stop on the scenic Cumbrian Coast Line south west of Carlisle....

, which is operated using the electric key token

Token (railway signalling)

In railway signalling, a token is a physical object which a locomotive driver is required to have or see before entering onto a particular section of single track. The token is clearly endorsed with the name of the section it belongs to...

 system. From here the line southwards towards Ravenglass and Barrow

Barrow-in-Furness railway station

Barrow-in-Furness railway station is a railway station that serves the town of Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, England. It is located on the Furness Line to Lancaster and the Cumbrian Coast Line to Workington and Carlisle...

 is double track (apart from the short section between Park South Junction (south of ) and Barrow, which is also single).

The station was also the southern terminus of the former Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway

Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway

The Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway was a standard gauge railway in Cumberland, England. It opened for goods traffic in 1855 and for passenger traffic in 1857.- Route :...

 line from Egremont

Egremont, Cumbria

Egremont is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Copeland in Cumbria, England, south of Whitehaven and on the River Ehen. The town, which lies at the foot of Uldale Valley and Dent Fell, was historically within Cumberland and has a long industrial heritage including dyeing, weaving and...

from August 1869 until closure in March 1964.

Services

There are ten trains a day from the station each weekday to Whitehaven and northbound and eleven to Barrow southbound since the 2008 timetable change (an improvement of two each way compared to the previous 2007-8 service level). Certain southbound trains continue on to .

There is no evening or Sunday service.

External links