Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

all in the Parish of Blackburn, and Read, Simonstone and Padiham near to a field as indicated upon the Plans as deposited. The said Railway would all be in Lancashire”. Other Clauses in the Act Stated - • That all and every part of the said sums of £128,000 and £42,600 which this Act authorised the Company to raise by New Shares of Mortgage, should be applied only to the purpose of the Railway and its works as Authorised by this Act. • That the Land required under the “Railways Clauses Consolidation Act 1845” shall not exceed five acres. • That the Compulsory Purchasing Powers conferred on the Company by this Act, could not be exercised after the Expiration of three years. • That if the Railway was not completed and open to the public within the period of four years from the passing of this Act, the Company would be liable to a Penalty at the rate of £50 for every day after the said period until the lines were completed and opened. The said penalty being deemed to be a Debt to Her Majesty in Right of Her Crown, and the Powers granted to the Company in this Act would expire. • But if the Company had been prevented from completing the Railway by unforeseen Accident or by Circumstances beyond their control, (of which Fact a Certificate under the hand of the Secretary of the Board of Trade shall be sufficient evidence), the Company shall then not be liable for this Payment or this Penalty. On December the 6 th , 1865, Sturgess Meek of the L & Y estimated it would cost £200,000 for the construction of the entire line. (The intention to build the North Lancashire Avoiding Line was made public in the Preston Guardian of February 3 rd , 1866.) On February the 23 rd , 1870, the tender of £94,890 for the western section between Little Harwood and Padiham was accepted from Thomas Stone of Newton-le-Willows, whilst James Gregson was in charge of the Padiham to Rose Grove section. He later defaulted on his contract, so it was left to the L & Y’s own workers to finish it off. It took from 1870 to 1877 to construct what was a 9¾ mile diversionary route, between Blackburn and Rose Grove in Burnley. It was colloquially referred to as the ‘Harwood Loop’, ( Great Harwood was the only station on this line which was later absorbed into Hyndburn. ) The construction of the North Lancs Avoiding Line, which was the ‘official’ name of this route, had actually begun in March, 1870, although the prospect of this alternative route had been suggested as far back as 1856, in order to relieve some of the congestion at Accrington Station. It would eventually cost a total of £210,626 to build, of which the ten spans of 40 feet each of Martholme Viaduct took up £11,500, which was considerably less than the £18,000 it was thought a masonry viaduct would cost. This was the major works on the line at 700 feet long and 75 feet above the Calder. At first it was stated that the structure would be built out of timber, but within in a week this edict was reversed in favour of stone, which would cost 3 shillings for every cubic foot and sourced from Cunliffe Quarry in Rishton, Coal seams had to be excavated before the foundations of three supports of the eleven arches could be laid. These were then sold by the mine’s owner, James Lomax, for a sum of £1,800, money which was offset against the construction of the viaduct. It was finished in 1874, sometime before the line was opened. Work had been hampered by two years of very wet weather and the original contractor, the late Mr Stone, ( who died in 1876 ), had needed to fill the embankment between Harwood Bar and the Martholme Valley with three-quarters of a million tons of earth, all of which had to be delivered by rail to the site from the Blackburn end. Another cutting between Great Harwood and Blackburn had required the removal of around 180,000 cubic yards of mainly quicksand, plus approximately 200,000 cubic yards of boulder clay at a cutting at Norden in Rishton. A further 300,000 cubic yards had been excavated at Cunliffe, this was mainly blue clay, shale and rock, whilst at Duxbury Woods old mine workings and a culvert and had been uncovered. This required repair using Blue Staffordshire Bricks. At the time when the line was almost ready for opening in January, 1876, a large landslip had occurred, resulting in the level of the embankment dropping at a rate of four feet each day. This carried away a large section of the works where they were 40 feet high through Copy Woods, and it took a further 650,000 cubic yards of soil in order to stabilise it. ( This bridge through the woods, Copy Bridge, was later removed after the lines were lifted in 1965). A short viaduct of three arches was adjacent to Padiham Station. This incorporated a walkway on one side. Another feature was the 1 in 40 incline between Padiham and Rose Grove, which required a banking locomotive to be stabled at Padiham to give assistance to the heavier trains. The route included

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