Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

Group Finance Director, Network Rail. By the end of the month we would know whether Accrington’s eco-friendly railway station had won a prestigious award. It had been nominated along with ten other projects in a competition run by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in the ‘sustainability’ category. Once again we had entered the season of engineering work on the railway. For six Sundays commencing on the 30 th , buses would replace trains on the section between Preston and Colne and on the Trans-Pennine Express, between Preston and Burnley - Manchester Road. Now that Accrington Station had its own forecourt, this was much more convenient for passengers and also meant the duty staff were on hand to supervise them without as before, having to leave the premises. The only problem on this occasion seemed to be the vans of the Babcock Engineers, who had taken over a substantial part of the area was making manoeuvrability difficult for the other vehicles. The work of the engineers seemed to be concentrated on the structure of the viaduct. On the subject of Accrington’s new eco-friendly railway station, it was confirmed that along with money from Europe, Tesco, whose new store is next to the station, had provided £200,000 towards the scheme. Again County Councillor Pritchard expressed his dissatisfaction at the inaccessibility of the platforms to severely disabled users. It was suggested that some improvements might be possible to improve the facilities for the disabled, if Accrington was to be the terminus for services to and from Manchester Victoria, if and when the Todmorden Curve project was completed. ( My understanding was it would go through to Blackburn before turning back. ) Northern Rail had already been made aware of the difficulties for the disabled, not only at Accrington, but also at Rishton Station. ( They were certainly no worse for the disabled than they had been previously. ) November Having secured the funding the Todmorden Curve project would go ahead, cutting the journey time from Accrington to Manchester to 45 minutes, hopefully encouraging growth in the jobs market for people seeking employment in the city, whilst people commuting from Manchester might look to buy property in North East Lancs. Touted as the ‘first direct route to Manchester since 1966’, it was somewhat a roundabout journey for residents of Accrington. The actual direct route was via Baxenden, Haslingden, Ramsbottom, Bury and Clifton Junction, to Manchester Victoria, when the journey time was, ( you’ve guessed it ) - 45 minutes! On the third Sunday of the month the track maintenance gangs were working on the section of track between the end of the viaduct and Queens Road Bridge. There were two locomotives which had topped-and-tailed the ballast wagons and lifting gear, before it had divided into two sections. The one doing the slow speed manoeuvring was 66:013, whilst the one anchoring the second section was 66:149. Both locomotives were in the original English, Welsh and Scottish Railways (EWS) livery, having not yet been given the bright red livery of their new operators DB Schenker. December Via Member of Parliament, Graham Jones, reassuring news had come from the Managing Director of Northern Rail in the following correspondence. Dear Sir, Following the publication of Sir Roy McNulty’s - Rail Value For Money Study, I appreciate that there is a great deal of speculation over potential cost saving measures across the industry. One of the areas referenced in this study were ticket offices at stations and the questions were posed as to whether their opening hours matched demand and whether the industry was making use of the best available technologies. I suspect that this may have been the stimulus behind press reports about the closure of Accrington’s ticket office. We have no plans to close the ticket office, however, we recognise that passengers have differing preferences for how they buy their tickets, and we will continue to expand our retail options through additional ticket vending machines at stations and the recent launch of our online ticket sales facility.

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