Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

Trains passing through Accrington to and from Liverpool via Preston and Ormskirk in 1920 were – Time From To Type 00:30 Rose Grove Aintree sorting sidings Class A goods (MX) 00:30 Goole Aintree sorting sidings Class R goods 01:15 Aintree sorting sidings Rose Grove Goods 01:25 Rose Grove Aintree sorting sidings Class A goods (MO) 03;40 Rose Grove Aintree sorting sidings Class M goods (MX) 04:35 Aintree sorting sidings Rose Grove Goods 08:10 Skipton Liverpool Exchange Station Express passenger 22:55 Aintree sorting sidings Leeds Class A goods (SuO) 22:55 Aintree sorting sidings Leeds Class R goods 22:56 Leeds Aintree sorting sidings Class A goods MX = Mondays excepted, SuO = Sundays only and MO = Mondays only all other trains ran Mondays to Saturdays. 1921 March For the first time since the end of the Great War the L & Y were to put on daily excursion trains to the coast, although tickets would be rationed. Return 3rd Class fares to Blackpool were 5/- and to Southport 4/6d. Other fares were, to London 41/-, Glasgow 38/3d and Edinburgh 38/6d. Day trips to Douglas IOM by Steam Package were 15/- in a saloon or 10/- steerage, but there were no reductions in the rail fare to Liverpool. --------------------- On January 1 st 1922, one year before the major grouping foretold in the Transport Act of 1921, the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway was amalgamated with the London & North Western Railway. Doubts had been raised about the sense of such a merger such a short space of time before the forming of the Big Four. But as far back as 1905 there had been rumblings of a merger, for there had been a good number of amicable meetings between the top brass of both companies, including Sir Frederic Harrison of the LNWR and John Aspinall. An added and rather unusual factor was that Arthur Watson, who was the top man at the L & Y, had taken up the same position with the LNWR, which was at the time an unprecedented situation. Other previous employees of the L & Y in post with the LNWR, were the Secretary, R. C. Irwin, and it’s Chief Mechanical Engineer, George Hughes, (although he did not stay long in this position after the grouping, but retired in March 1925 at the age of 59, due it was rumoured to his discontent with the ex-Midland hierarchy). In addition Ashton Davis the L & Y’s Superintendent of the Line was given the responsibility of managing the LNWR’s lines north of Crewe which included the L & Y’s tracks. These it was generally felt, were designed to speed up a merger. At its zenith the L & Y operated just over 600 miles of lines, had 1,650 locomotives in stock of which 1,100 was the daily service requirement, with over 1,000 built in its own works in Horwich. Annually approximately ninety million passenger journeys were made, over fifteen million tons of minerals were transported along with millions of tons of other goods and livestock. It operated over four thousand passenger carriages all electrically illuminated over thirty-five thousand wagons and vans, all of which generated more revenue per mile than any of the other of the large railway companies. These included several types of specialised wagons, including ‘tramcar-trolley wagons’, which were used to deliver tram bodies from the builders to their operators, some of which were in use for over 50 years. This was the method by which Accrington’s cars were brought to Blythe’s Sidings for off-loading. There were also eight 21 feet long mail vans which were introduced in 1910. These totals do not include any private owner rolling stock which was operated over the lines of the Company.

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