Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

May After a career spanning 47 years on the railway, James Bamber, of Hollins Lane, had retired from the position of Goods Agent for the LMS at Accrington Station, and he had also seen service at Bury, Bolton and Blackburn in this capacity. It was quite apparent that the general public were heeding the Government’s appeal to economise on travelling, in order not to overburden the railways. Bookings at Accrington Station showed a dramatic drop on Whit Monday to the previous year, and numbers going to the coast were in comparison –

Destination

1941 1942

Blackpool Morecambe Southport Fleetwood Liverpool

1,700

609

129 101

55 67 70 59

77 73 15

West of England Grange-over-Sands Southern England

3 4 2

6 6 2

Llandudno

0 Only Windermere showed an increase from the previous year going up by 2 to 10.

It was reported that Mr Jack Grimshaw, formerly of Black Abbey Street, who was employed on the railway at Accrington’s engine sheds first as a cleaner and then as a fireman, had been killed in a bombing raid on the West Midlands where he had been transferred to work. ( As far as I can ascertain, this was the only fatality due to enemy action of an Accrington railway employee during the conflict. ) June “If the habit of jumping trains cannot be solved by imposing fines, then it will have to be by imprisoning offenders”, stated Mr Broderick, Chairman of Southport Police, when fining two men one from Accrington, the other from Clayton 10 shillings each. Gilbert Woodcock and Richard Stevenson, both serving soldiers, had travelled from Accrington to Southport and claimed they had boarded the train at St. Luke’s Station just one up the line from the resort on Sunday. But when they were told that this particular station did not open on the Sabbath, admitted they had only purchased tickets from Accrington to Church & Oswaldtwistle. They also had to share costs of £2 - 10s - 6d. July By the middle of the year the LMS was employing over 7,000 females, who were now doing a whole range of jobs, with half working as porters on goods and passenger stations, 600 as drivers of parcel delivery vans, 246 as labourers in the engine sheds with an additional 100 as locomotive cleaners. On Saturday, the 26 th , no fewer than five relief trains were running from Accrington to Blackpool departing at 7:48, 8:55 and 10:30 in the morning and at 12:46 and 1:35 in the afternoon. Other trains were the 9am to Fleetwood, the 9:28am to North Wales, the 9:40am to Morecambe and the 10am to Southport. On both Monday and Tuesday, extra trains to Blackpool would depart at 7:45 and 9:35 in the morning, returning from the resort at 7:40pm and 8pm respectively. Stationmaster Unsworth advised passengers they should obtain tickets on scheduled trains from Blackpool in advance, and period return ticket holders should advise the Railway Company on which day they were intending to return, so that the LMS could make adequate provisions to accommodate them. There were also to be relief trains to Blackpool on all the weekdays at 8:25am and 9:55am and to Morecambe at 10:05am. The single fare for a return journey would be applied on Monday and Tuesday, but would be restricted to these ‘special’ trains, whereas passengers travelling to Blackpool by ordinary trains would have to fork out the standard fare plus one third. A queue began to form outside Accrington Station at 6am at the start of Accrington holidays, and by 10am it stretched over 200 yards. In Blackpool on the following Wednesday, at 8am in the morning, the queue was over a mile long for destinations including those in East Lancashire, even though the booking hall did not open until 9am. Bookings from Accrington showed increases over the Wakes Week in 1941. All of the three extra trains to Blackpool in the morning and the one extra in the afternoon, had been fully booked by the previous Thursday, the approximate figures for 1942 were as follows -

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