Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

Blackburn and again in Hellifield, finally arrive in Skipton after a journey of fifty miles taking two and a half hours. It would be the first time for 37 years that a train had linked the two towns, and following a three hour stay the 300 passengers would be conveyed back along the same route. SELRAP had commissioned this train to raise public and political awareness in their campaign to have this stretch of line reopened, in order to provide a ‘direct’ link from East Lancashire to the Yorkshire town as it was when the Leeds & Bradford Extension Railway first laid the tracks in 1848. This company was later incorporated into the Midland Railway during 1851. The train would call at Accrington en route, and then drop passengers off on the return leg. After only a few weeks of operation Fraser Eagle had sold its share of York based Grand Central Trains for a reported £3 millions, three times the amount they invested in the fledgling train company in 2004. Kevin Dean, the Group Managing Director, had said that this cash will fund “exciting new areas of the business”. One of the three investors who had purchased the Fraser Eagle stake was Giles Fearnley, former boss of Blazefield Holdings, who was at one time the head of the train operating company Prism Rail. April Plans had been submitted to Hyndburn Council for the new railway station. It would be an environmentally friendly building powered by solar panels, and would provide much improved facilities for the travelling public. Built partly of natural stone with timber framed glazing, the interior would include vending machines and pre-purchase ticket machines plus an enclosed waiting room. Possibly the best news was that instead of just one member of staff being on duty there would be two with a further member working on a shift basis. On the downside there would be a loss of eight car parking spaces, as the booking hall would be back on the Eagle Street side where it was during the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway era. No estimates of the cost had yet been made public, but it was expected that work would commence in 2008 and take between twelve and eighteen months to complete. It was also expected that there would be facilities for buses to stop adjacent to the booking hall for a smooth interchange of passengers. July The good news for rail commuters in Accrington was that Lancashire County Council had now approved planning permission for the new facilities to replace the old station buildings. The development would be similar to one already in use at Liverpool South Parkway, and would use locally sourced materials, will be eco-friendly using solar panels and a wind turbine to generate its power, including lighting the new car park. There will be an extra employee based in the booking office when the project was completed during 2009. The cost of constructing the new booking hall/waiting room was estimated to be in the region of £400,000. But by the time the old footbridge has been replaced by a new one and the car park completed, the cost would have gone up to over two and a half million pounds! At a meeting of Hyndburn Cabinet, the Deputy Leader informed members that they had been required to support a campaign by the Skipton - East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership (SELRAP), to reopen the lines between Colne and Skipton, an 11½ mile stretch of former Midland railway track, thus providing an alternative route across the Pennines benefiting both communities. It was resolved to inform SELRAP of the Council’s support for its campaign, subject to their proposals not adversely affecting the quality of services on the existing Trans-Pennine routes. August Burnley Borough Council had been lobbying for the reinstatement of the curve at Hall Royd Junction in Todmorden, in order to reintroduce a ‘direct’ service of trains from the Manchester Road Station to Rochdale and on to Manchester. In this they had the support of two other groups, the Burnley Action Partnership and Burnley Vision Board. Currently the quickest journey by rail was with a change at Hebden Bridge at 1 hour 10 minutes, and by putting back this link it could cut the journey time down to 45 minutes. The embankment at Hall Royd, although overgrown, was still extant and it was estimated that the cost of relaying the line would be in the region of £1 million, with an extra £2 millions for new signalling. Other options were dividing the Manchester  Clitheroe trains at Blackburn with the front portion going forward to Colne whilst the rear carriages continued on to Clitheroe. But this suggestion had been dismissed by the incumbent rail operator as ‘not feasible’. Also mooted was the idea of alternating trains, with every other train working as far as Burnley Central only. This would have reduced the journey time between Burnley and Manchester to just 1 hour and 14 minutes, beating by a couple of minutes the time taken by the X43 bus, but not on fares. Also unlikely was the idea of reversing trains that had worked through Burnley Manchester Road at Rose Grove, so that they could then serve all stations to

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