Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

Railway Company’s Chief Engineer, Mr John Shae Perring, to take them down and completely rebuild them, this work being completed during 1847. This was the year in which the first shares in the East Lancashire Railway were offered. The first one to take up on this offer was Mr H. Lang, who purchased forty at a price of £8 – 10s – 0p each at a total cost £340. By November the ELR’s £20 shares were selling at £15 each. During 1849 a Union of ELR’s shareholders was formed at the request of Mr Hoole of Blackburn. Membership was a fee of 1 shilling, and a Mr Bannister was appointed as Secretary and Treasurer. The object of this was to encourage a more efficient use of the lines. At a shareholders meeting held in the Bury Headquarters of the ELR on January 30 th , 1850, a 2% dividend on shares was declared. However, at another meeting held on March the 1st, in Bury, J. R. Kay Esq was elected on to the Board of Directors. The condition on which he accepted this nomination was that no ‘cheap’ train tickets would be available on Sundays. In 1851 the dividend was 2% or 5 shillings per share. At the Bury shareholders meeting held in 1852, the dividend declared was 2½%, but the main topic for discussion was the approach by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway for an amalgamation. As an aside, the licence for the public house on Blackburn Road at the corner of Edgar Street was first granted in 1834, when it had another name. It was then under the tenancy of John Stansfield When the railway reached Accrington its name was appropriately changed to the Railway Hotel as it was the closest in proximity to the Station. In 1849 ‘mine host’ was John Stevenson. The construction of the line after crossing Whalley Road required the removal of 200,000 cubic yards of material to form a cutting from Meadow Top ( Iron Bridge ) to the bridge over the railway between Whitewell Road and the Cricket Ground off Thorneyholme Road. The line beyond Hapton through to Colne was engineered by Richard and William Hattersley, who were responsible for the construction of the original tunnel through the Pennines between Manchester and Sheffield at Woodhead. The contract for this section of line was estimated at £128,000. The biggest setback came during 1846, when one of the arches on the viaduct connecting Burnley Barracks and Bank Top stations collapsed due to storm force winds, delaying the opening as far as Bank Top until December 1848. The completion of the line meant services to Colne did not commence until February 1 st , 1849, some four months after the railway had arrived in Colne from the Skipton direction. Although trains began to operate on the five-and-a-half mile section between Accrington and Burnley Barracks on September 18 th , 1848, there were more problems with the piers of the viaduct spanning the River Hyndburn and it was resolved by Sturgess Meek, the then Chief Engineer of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, that remedial work costing just a couple of hundred pounds would make them safe, at least for another year! Meek, (1816 – 1888), had joined the ELR during 1846 and had become the company’s Chief Civil Engineer in 1853. The temporary repairs to the stanchions of the railway viaduct proved to be just that, and work was put underway to permanently resolve the problem by sinking cylinders into them, at a further expense of £5,000. However, this work finally amounted to a total of £11,215. The section between Stubbins and Accrington involved a climb of 5½ miles at a ruling gradient of 1 in 78 to a summit at Baxenden 771 feet above sea level. Deep peat bogs were encountered between Stubbins Junction and Helmshore, and again at Edenfield. Over a period of twelve weeks stone and rock were dumped in order to form a stable footing for a track-bed. The most unusual structure on the line was a short ‘tubular’ metal tunnel-bridge at Haslingden Grane. Previously the occupant of Stoops Farm in Great Harwood, after he moved to Accrington Mr John Rhodes became a contractor, and was one of those who worked on the section of line between Haslingden and Accrington. Other features on this line was a short wooden viaduct at Alderbottom which in 1881 was replaced at Lumb by a steel girder bridge, with nine arches, before the three spans of the Ogden Viaduct. The only other level crossing on the line after the one at Ramsbottom Station was at Helmshore, before a curved stone viaduct of eleven arches. There was a short tunnel of 146 yards in length at Haslingden Station. There were less troublesome stone viaducts to the south of Accrington, at Helmshore, and at Shoe Mill which had five arches, (sometimes called Clough Viaduct), on the Baxenden incline.

4