Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

( Over the Christmas and New Year holidays, National Express reported substantial increases in passenger numbers all across their coaching network .) February On the evening of the 26 th , a potentially dangerous incident occurred, when a Northern Spirit Diesel Multiple Unit operating a Trans-Pennine Express, was struck by Molotov cocktails. The train was passing over Lonsdale Street Bridge, when the device hit the front of the driver’s cab causing some minor damage. A search revealed that two more bottles with tapers that hit the train at the same time, had fortunately failed to explode. March If the Liberal Democrat Euro MP for Lancashire, Mr Chris Davies, had his way, then both Huncoat and Church & Oswaldtwistle stations might get their very own stationmasters. The job of manning the station, selling tickets, dispensing information, and keeping the stations clean and tidy, could be offered out as a franchise, with the occupant of the job taking 9% of the takings as an income. Apparently this scheme had been piloted with some success at Ledbury in Herefordshire. The local train operators First North Western and Northern Spirit, had both expressed an interest in the scheme. Having made certain observations about the state of the local railway stations, the suggested choice of Church & Oswaldtwistle, and Huncoat stations was somewhat perplexing. The only facilities the two stations had, were basic bus stand type shelters on both platforms, although there was an adjacent signal box, which supervised the level crossing at Huncoat. But the number of passengers that actually commenced their journeys at these two stations was negligible. Although the First North Western services between Blackpool South, Preston and Colne stopped at Huncoat and Church & Oswaldtwistle, Northern Spirit on their Trans-Pennine Blackpool to Scarborough services, did not call at these two stations anyway! The same could also be said of Rishton, which was the only other unmanned station in Hyndburn. At least in the case of Rishton, there seemed to be more passengers joining or leaving the trains, especially to and from the Blackburn direction. ( The siting of Ledbury as an example of the scheme's success was something of a misleading one. The town was in a largely agricultural area with much greater distances between its neighbours, on a trunk route with a higher frequency and grade of service than that operated by First North Western. These services probably offered the travellers a much more acceptable alternative to the area’s rural bus services. With only on average two trains per hour,[Winter 2000 - 2001 timetable], roughly 25 minutes apart at Church & Oswaldtwistle, and only 10 minutes apart at Huncoat, the rest of the hour for anyone accepting the task, would only be described as less than fully occupied . A very good idea in principle, but with the alternative of reasonably frequent bus services passing close by both of the stations, this was not a practical solution with the current level of service. However, if the principles were applied to Rishton, then there was the possibility of some limited success. But as with all things, the likelihood of generating a decent income seemed minimal, for what was 9% of next to nothing? ) April There would be no new trains on the local services that serve East Lancashire according to Mr Paul Bunting, Commercial Director of First North Western Trains, this despite that company’s £70 million investment in new rolling stock. The only improvements likely to take place were the introduction of trains that would run direct from Colne through Accrington to Manchester, and vice-versa, (without having to change at Blackburn). The reason given was that passenger numbers were not sufficient, and he pointed out that his Company received a government subsidy of £190 million just to maintain the present levels of service. At the time being the East Lancashire line would have to make do with its present stock and units that are cascaded down from other routes. The state-of- the-art new units were already in service between Barrow-in-Furness, Preston, and Manchester Airport. The local members of Parliament, (all Labour), had stated their condemnation of First North Western's decision, and expressed the implausibility of a claim for greater subsidies, without first improving standards of service. “The Government is not there to bail train operating companies out”, the Hyndburn MP had been quoted as saying. May Starting in Preston and running via the Settle & Carlisle Line to Carlisle, the St James Tripper went to Edinburgh on the 5 th . This required passengers to the east to travel to Blackburn in order to board as it would run via Hellifield. It returned via the West Coast Mainline to Preston with the motive power throughout provided by 33:021 and 31:459 in tandem. Following on from the announcement from First North Western Trains, they would not be introducing new rolling stock on the East Lancashire Line, came the unveiling of a scheme to bring a

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