Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

by 1903, by which time a centralised control had been set up at Hunts Bank near Manchester’s Victoria Station. ) The livery of the locomotives was black with red and white lining. The L & Y did not indulge in the naming of its engines. Passenger rolling stock was described as umber/brown or buff above the waistline, and purple/brown below the window-line. This darker shade was lined in the lighter brown. The carriages had silver-grey roofs. Trains passing through Accrington to and from Liverpool via Preston and Ormskirk in 1858 were - Time From To Type 04:00 Colne Liverpool Goods 09:30 Colne Liverpool Goods 09:40 Liverpool Colne A 1st & 2nd Class passenger 11:00 Colne Liverpool 1st, 2nd & 3rd Class passengers* 13:00 Liverpool Colne Pick up goods 14:50 Accringto n Liverpool Goods 17:20 Liverpool Colne Goods 20:20 Colne Liverpool Goods 20:30 Liverpool Accrington Goods 21:20 Liverpool Accrington Goods *A Parliamentary train was one which had to provide accommodation for 3rd Class passengers by law at 1 penny per mile travelled. With only one through train per weekday, including Saturdays, passengers were required to change in Preston on other services. Although part of the East Lancs Railway trains were mainly worked by engines from the Preston Ormskirk and Liverpool Railway. The worst accident to occur on the Accrington Line was on September 3 rd , 1860, only a couple of years’ after the takeover by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway. Although not as severe as the incline out of Accrington to Baxenden, coming in the other direction the climb from Stubbins to Baxenden summit had a ruling gradient of 1:78 for almost four miles, steepening to 1:68 just before the top. On this date three well loaded excursions were returning from Manchester to Burnley and Colne. At this time trains were not separated by space in a ‘block’ system, where no train could enter a section until the proceeding train had cleared, but by a time interval. This system had obvious flaws. However, the first train had safely gone over the top, whilst the second train followed on behind. Unfortunately, as this train reached Grane Road in Haslingden, the coupling between the locomotive and the rear twelve carriages broke. This was before a safety vacuum braking device had become standard, which would have brought the runaways to a halt, so they began to return whence they had come at an increasing speed. Unaware, the driver of the third train was coming forward, with the result that near Helmshore Station the inevitable collision occurred. With considerable force the engine was thrown off the rails along with several of the carriages, but their couplings held so this train remained together. Sadly, the carriages that had broken free suffered catastrophic damage, and it was within these that the eleven fatalities happened along with sixty two injuries. The L & Y had a poor reputation for safety during this period and was severely censured, whilst railway engineers set about finding ways to avoid similar tragedies in the future. 1862 This was the first year that a merger between the London & North Western Railway and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway was first mentioned and it was to be a re-occurring theme over the next decade or so. The two Companies had signed an agreement to share traffic on February 1 st , 1862 which had the duration of 14 years. 1863 Although the first attempt at a merger of the L & Y and the L&NWR had failed, there was significant collaboration between the two companies in building a line to connect Wigan with its coalfields and Blackburn with mills hungry for fuel. Requiring a faster journey than was possible by the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, this joint venture via Chorley was named the Lancashire Union Railway, and it

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