Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

( Following the same correspondence passed on to the Executive Director for the Environment at County Hall in Preston by Graham Jones MP, the following response dated November 17 th was received. ) I fully understand your constituent’s suggestion of a fully clockwise and anti clockwise circular train service. In an ideal world this would be the service pattern to aim for. I do believe however, that the railway industry would be unreceptive to this idea and would wish to keep the services into Pennine Lancashire from Manchester via Todmorden and via Bolton separate. Whilst this is work in progress, the current thinking was to extend the existing hourly Wigan to Rochdale via Manchester Victoria service to Blackburn via the reinstated Todmorden Curve. This would allow for the most efficient use of the presently available capacity through Manchester Victoria, as well as mitigating timetable performance risks through allowing sufficient layover at Blackburn before each train returns via Todmorden. We will, however keep in mind this suggestion. Should any of the plans to increase the capacity in the central Manchester area come to fruition, then it may be possible for this idea to be considered. Yours sincerely, Jo Turton. December On Tuesday the 14 th , DB Schenker Type 5 Diesel 60:074 named the ‘Teenage Spirit’ was noted heading east up the incline from Accrington viaduct at the head of a rake of brand new VTG tank wagons. This locomotive is in the unique pale blue livery of the Teenage Cancer Trust. THE NEW BEGINNINGS 2011 January As per usual the winter months heralded the start of necessary engineering work on the East Lancs Line every Sunday for five weeks from the start of the month, buses and coaches would replace trains on the Colne  Blackpool South and York  Blackpool North Trans-Pennine services. May Accrington’s eco-friendly railway station was one of the four reasons why Lancashire County Council had been short-listed in a poll of achievements in the category of ‘sustainable infrastructure’. In a statement a spokesperson for LCC said, “The new railway station opened during 2010 and has achieved a high level of sustainability, providing an example for future designs of stations in the UK and also across Europe.” The winners were to be announced at a ceremony to be held on Thursday, June 28 th . June The new railway station in Accrington had already illustrated that good facilities would justify the expense. The Community Rail partnership in East Lancashire had recently completed a survey of the numbers of people using the trains showing there had been an increase of 15% in March, 2011 when compared to the same month in 2010. The actual figures were quoted as 273,000 last year, compared to 314,000 this year. The original surge just after the facilities were opened was actually nearer to a 30% increase according to an insider source. There was, according to Network Rail, no reason why the 500 metres of line known colloquially as the ‘Todmorden Curve’ could not be reinstated. It was then on top of a list of seven schemes for the --------------------- CHAPTER 17

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