Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

was taking four hours to complete. Huge drifts were again disrupting supplies of coal getting through to households, and this had triggered off a spate of pilfering from the coal sidings in the Antley district. March Between January 28 th , and February 23 rd , there had been twenty-three days of snow, and it was not until March 17 th that two express trains which had been cancelled due to fuel shortages were reintroduced. They were the 7:52am from Accrington to Bury, Manchester Victoria and Salford, and the return 5:12pm Salford to Colne which called at Accrington at 5:52pm. April The Easter weekend was no busier at Accrington Station than on a ‘normal’ weekend, according to Stationmaster Unsworth. The only queue was for the train taking Burnley supporters to watch their semi final cup match. June Whitsuntide was also quiet with services to Blackpool showing little increase. The Station master at Great Harwood Station at this time was Mr R. Turner, who resided at 20 Station Road in the town, which was owned by the Railway to house him and his family. July There was only one relief train to Blackpool at the start of the Accrington annual holidays, whilst demand for seats on trains going to more distant destinations than the Lancashire coastal resorts had been booked up. These included trains to London, Torquay, Llandudno, Taunton and the west of England. On the overnight specials 400 had booked for the West Country whilst 450 were off to the Isle of Man and 100 for London. There were 250 for Fleetwood, for Southport 400, New Brighton 200, Scarborough 150, the Lake District 100, and Ireland and Scotland about 50 each on the Saturday, whilst tickets for both Blackpool and Morecambe were both down by 50% on the previous year. September Association football was the big draw at Accrington Station over the September holidays, with 500 off to Burnley to see their home game with Arsenal, and 200 went to Manchester to see Blackburn Rovers play at Maine Road against City. There was an estimated influx of 300 Nelson supporters who detrained in Accrington to watch their game against Stanley Reserves. August The General Purposes Committee met and whilst referring to a minute of January 1946, the Borough Engineer reported that again the LMS had asked whether the Corporation was interested in acquiring their premises on Antley Old Road as well as some of the disused property on Corporation Street. Following visits to these two sites it was resolved to decline the Railway Company’s offers. November The Watch Committee met when the Town Clerk reported he had received a letter from the LMS with regard to the termination of the agreement between them and the Corporation for the utilisation of three sites owned by them for the purpose of air-raid shelters. These had recently been demolished and the land cleared, so it was now possible to give notice to terminate the agreement, It was resolved the Town Clerk could serve the appropriate documents in order to end this agreement with the Railway Company. The Rating & Valuation Committee met to receive correspondence from the Railway Assessment Authority, in which were enclosed extracts from the ‘Draft Part of the Fourth Roll’, which referred to the LMS Railway Company, together with a statutory notice under Paragraph 5 of the Third Schedule to the Railways (Value for Rating) Act 1930. In this connection there was also before this Committee a letter from the County Valuation Commissioner, enquiring if Accrington desired to join with ‘other’ authorities for the purpose of advertising that Section B of the Draft Roll had been deposited, and was open for inspection at the offices of the Authority. Arrangements would be made for this combined advertisement to be inserted into one issue of the Daily Dispatch newspaper, and the cost of this distributed equally between the rating authorities concerned. It was agreed that Accrington would agree to this proposal and contribute its share to the cost. Due to the acute shortage of serviceable rolling stock local firms who were normally working a five-day week, were asked if they would accept deliveries of merchandise over the weekend of Saturday, the 29 th , and Sunday, the 30 th , as Accrington’s railwaymen responded to an appeal to free up vans and wagons as quickly as possible. On Saturday, the staff unloaded 44 vehicles, 14 more than normal, whilst on the Sunday, a further 29 were emptied, making a total of 73 between Friday night and Monday morning. The Traffic Superintendent at Accrington, Mr J. Smith, described this as an excellent result considering most were miscellaneous and sundry items rather than bulk loads.

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