Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

embankments, along with the bridge structures, and then a detailed decision would be made. Several people pointed out that black tarmac would not be in keeping with the environment and this observation they were assured, would be passed on. Born and bred in Darwen, inventor and ‘engineering guru’ Robin Wolfendale, had come up with an idea which if proved successful could be the biggest breakthrough in railway technology for well over a century. ‘Embedded Rail Technology’ had the tracks set into a flexible material that provided a ride where noise and vibration was much reduced, the whole assembly being encased into concrete for durability. It was claimed to be more efficient and environmentally friendly than the current system of track laying, allowing vehicles to travel faster by absorbing less of the tractive effort, plus reducing by a significant amount noise levels and wear and tear. Currently being tested on Blackpool’s tramway, if the experiment proved successful it could be developed to upgrade the nation’s railway infrastructure to accommodate truly high speed trains. The inventor was now working along with the East Lancashire Partnership, with a view to installing the new trackbed on the Rapid Transit Project, which was earmarked for the area at some point in the future. He has already received £37,000 of Government ‘Smart’ money, to assist him in developing his invention. This cash was available only to those who had come forward with the brightest of workable ideas, said a spokesperson for the Small Businesses Service. Due to start this summer, the rebuilding of Burnley’s Central Railway Station, (formerly Bank Top), was just the first in a whole series of projects designed to take transport in East Lancashire into the 21 st Century. Having commissioned ‘specialist railway consultants’ to examine the feasibility of their plans, the East Lancashire Partnership was now four years down the line in producing a blueprint for transport, and this was due to be unveiled in December, 2003, following the publication of a similar study into public transport on the area’s roads, which was due out in October. This blueprint was expected to contain details of a Rapid Transit system. It was predicted that local rail services would be quadrupled to a frequency of four per hour. The scheme not only envisaged the upgrading of existing railway stations to make them more user friendly, but also the construction of up to eleven more. The potential sites for these new facilities had already been selected. The estimated cost of the project, which would embrace a fully integrated transport package, was estimated to be in the region of £100 million (153.9 million Euros). It was stressed that all these measures were part of a much larger strategy, to bring investment and jobs into the area and to convince businesses that it was a good place in which to work and live. May On Saturday the 10 th , the St James Tripper was to Scarborough, with steam haulage behind ‘Big 8’ 48151 as a special incentive to ride. June Possibly the longest dispute in the history of railways had finally been resolved. For fourteen months conductors on Arriva Trains had been staging a series of 24 and 48-hour stoppages, which had left the public of both Lancashire and Yorkshire without their cross-Pennine services. On the debit side it was estimated that beside the loss of a considerable amount of goodwill, the dispute had cost the Train Operating Company between £3 million and £4 million in lost revenue. Despite these setbacks the Arriva Group, which included the Northern Rail operations, had increased its profits by 11% to over £102 million in the last financial year. July Industrial action and the ‘wrong’ kind of weather were two of the main reasons given by the companies who operated trains through East Lancashire for the big rise in complaints. Others included the state of some of the stations and an absence of accurate information. These conclusions were the result of a ‘national passenger survey’ conducted by the Strategic Rail Authority during 2002, ( and in which I participated ). The train operators First North Western and Arriva, pointed out that in a ‘local’ survey 81% of the passengers canvassed said they were satisfied with their journey. This should not obscure the fact that on average four out of five trains arrived at their destinations over five minutes late. Even more surprising was the news that Accrington might still be in line for a bus/rail interchange. In what would be one of the greatest ironies, the site that is being examined was the land at present occupied by the Eagle Street Station car park. When the debate on where a bus station might go in Accrington had started in 1938, it ended with the opening of the market side of Peel Street in 1963. During this period several sites were put forward and then eliminated for one reason or another, whilst this piece of land was one of the less well favoured of the bunch. Of course this was at a time when tramways had fallen out of favour and light rapid transit systems, (LRT’s), were unheard of. The main

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