page_title: Moorswater railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Moorswater railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: Pre Grouping railway junction around Bromshall, Clifton (Molyneux), Hay, Liskeard, Patricroft &amp; Uttoxeter
context_page_description: Moorswater railway station was the centre of operations for the Liskeard and Caradon Railway and the Liskeard and Looe Railway. The two railways made an end on junction here. It was the site of the lines' engine shed, also a china clay works which is now used as a cement terminal.
context_section_description: The Liskeard and Caradon Railway was opened on 28 November 1844 from quarries on the moors north of Liskeard to Moorswater where goods were transshipped to the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal.  At Looe they could then be transhipped again to sea-going vessels for transport further around the coast.
  The canal was superseded by a railway on 27 December 1860 and passengers were carried on the Moorswater to Looe section from 11 September 1879.  The Cornwall Railway, which opened in 1859, had intended to make a junction with the Liskeard and Caradon Railway near Moorswater but a lack of capital saw this scheme abandoned, the line passing high above the goods yard on the Moorswater Viaduct.  The new station, which was situated just north of the viaduct, was used by passengers travelling into Liskeard, but from 1896 a platform was provided at Coombe where trains would call to set down passengers going to Liskeard railway station if they notified the guard, as the steep road from there to the station was considerably shorter than the route from Moorswater.
  On 15 May 1901 passenger trains from Looe were diverted over the new loop line to Liskeard railway station and Moorswater station closed to passengers.  Goods traffic has continued – on and off – up to the present day.  A siding for the Cheesewring Quarry Company opposite the station was later used by the Cornwall County Council as a road maintenance depot until 1964.  Beyond the station another siding lead into the china clay works of the St Neots China Clay Company where china clay was processed that was brought down from Bodmin Moor by pipeline before being dispatched as powder to Looe or, later, Fowey.  This was opened in 1904 and closed in the 1990s but the site has since been used as a cement distribution depot and trains are brought in from time to time, the motive power being initially provided by Freightliner but more recently by Colas Rail.
caption: A 1905 Railway Clearing House Junction Diagram showing (lower right) railways in the vicinity of Moorswater
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