Closed railway lines in Britain and Ireland

This page last updated: 22 June 2008

This is an endeavour to record the dates of cessation of revenue traffic on railway lines in Britain and Ireland, the origins of which are to be found in A Guide to Closed Railways in Britain 1948-75, compiled by Norman J Hill and Dr Angus O McDougall, and published by the Branch Line Society in 1977 (with an Amendment List in 1979). In the absence of any subsequent edition, the material was up-dated in Register of Closed Railways 1948-1991, compiled by Geoffrey Hurst and published by Milepost Publications in 1992. Both titles are now long out of print and it is thanks to the late Brian Philp that the present document - which contains up-dating and corrections made to about 2003 by Dr McDougall - appeared on the web in October of that year. Please note that the data in the supporting webpages have not been revised since then.

The data are in three separate elements - England & Wales, Scotland and Ireland - accessible through the links below. They are in a format that can be saved and opened with Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software, enabling the data to be sorted - for example, by date. The England & Wales file is quite large, so may take a little time to download.

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No authority to republish the information is implied and any rights which may subsist in any of the material are fully reserved by the various compilers and webmasters.

Names of locations: Each entry is described by its terminal points, supplemented by the name of the district or nearest station where appropriate. Names which are all in capital-letters, for example DROPE JN, are those of specific signalling installations or block-posts or ground-frames, using the form of the name actually appearing on the signal-box or ground-frame at the time of closure. The words 'signal-box' or their equivalent, as for example on former Great Western Railway block-posts, are however omitted. Names with initial capital-letters are those of stations (whether open or closed at the time) or of sidings or in some circumstances localities (although these may occasionally be shown in capital-letters when the precise limit of the closed section is unknown). Names in capital-letters enclosed within brackets indicate either former block-posts, for example (THORNHILL MIDLAND JN) or notional block-posts, for example (DUNGLASS JN). An asterisk following a name indicates that a substantial portion of the line in question was retained at that place as a siding or sidings, or as a headshunt. A question mark in brackets following a name indicates doubt about nomenclature or about the precise point of closure. The pre-1923 ownership of the line (or other significant ownership where appropriate) is given.

Dates: The closure date is as far as possible the date on and from which revenue-earning traffic was no longer able to use that section of line. This usually means the date of the Monday following the last train on the Friday or sometimes the Saturday and very occasionally the Sunday. Notes indicate any substantial difference between that date and date the line was finally put out of use or the date of last train or the so-called 'official' date. A few lines are listed more than once where substantial periods of time separated the various types of closure. Closures of lines to passenger traffic only, as distinct from closure to all traffic are not dealt with here. A question mark following an entry usually indicates doubt about the date quoted. Each entry has a reference number, the digits before the decimal point referring to the year of closure if known. 9999 indicates that the year of closure is unknown.

Abbreviations which may be used in the notes include:

AD = actual date
LT = last train (usually the last revenue-earning train or the last train sent to clear empty wagons. It does NOT refer to the last engineers' or track-lifting train.)
PC = permanent closure
RTC = regular traffic ceased
RO = reopened
S = line severed; junction points removed
T = taken out of use; signalling removed and/or points clamped
TC = temporary closure
TR = track removed; date when track-lifting finally severed the line

To continue to the relevant section, click below:

Scotland (251 kilobytes)
England & Wales (1307 kilobytes)
Ireland & Northern Ireland (54 kilobytes)

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