there and Brayton. The line was 6½ miles long and very steeply graded; it opened to mineral traffic on 24 March 1887. A passenger service operated at the southern end, as far as Seaton, but except for a brief (September–November 1908) attempt at a Workington-Linefoot service only excursions and special passenger trains operated throughout, Boom and bust for iron In the 1880s the iron industry continued to expand considerably, and if the focus of the processing of iron was at Workington, the principal port for export was Maryport. In 1884 Senhouse Dock there further expanded its facilities. The boom was slowed somewhat by improvements in steel making (particularly the introduction of the Gilchrist Thomas 'basic' process, which by using a reactive lining allowed Bessemer converters to use ores with higher phosphorus content) and by the availability of cheap iron ore from Spain. However World War I increased demand and impeded overseas supply, so the local industry revived for a time. After 1918 a steep decline set in, with changes in the structure of the industry and increasing difficulty in mining haematite. One consequence of this was the closure of the Solway Viaduct by the Caledonian Railway which had taken over the Solway Junction Railway; from May 1922 the Maryport and Carlisle Railway worked trains (Abbey Junction to Brayton) on the Caledonian line south of the Solway which was now isolated from the rest of the Caledonian system . After Grouping (1923 - ) The Railways Act 1921 caused the "grouping" of the main line railways of Great Britain; this took effect at the beginning of 1923 and all the railways in the area became part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) which at the end of February 1924 shut the Maryport carriage waggon and locomotive shops 'one of the industrial mainstays of the town'. This coincided with the steepest decline of the local mining and ironworks industries, and unemployment in Maryport reached 77% in 1931. The local railways were dependent on the prosperity of those industries, and many of the marginal routes became unsustainable. The Mealsgate to Aikbank Junction section closed on 1 August 1921, and the remaining Mealsgate to Aspatria section closed to passengers on 22 September 1930; it closed completely on 1 December 1952. The Derwent branch closed completely on 29 April 1935. Heavy industry in West Cumbria declined post-war, steel-making ceasing in the 1970s, deep-mining