Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

On the subject of the reopening of the Colne to Skipton railway line, I had reservations as to the viability of the scheme. Before the line closed in February, 1970, the core services were between Skipton and Manchester via Accrington and Bury, and between Skipton and Blackpool again via Accrington, then Blackburn and Preston. This despite the relatively early introduction of diesel multiple units which replaced steam in the early 1960s to cut the operational running costs. It received another setback when the more direct route from Accrington through Bury to Manchester was closed in 1966, but before this the Manchester service had been cut back to terminate and begin in Colne. ( There were 13 trains each weekday between Colne and Manchester in 1959 .) This seemed to indicate that even in the days before mass car ownership that section of the former Midland Railway was not considered cost effective. Next, on to the obstacles that would have to be overcome in order to reinstate the line. It is true that much of the track-bed was still in situation in the more rural areas through which the line was constructed, although it would have deteriorated in the forty or so years since the lines were lifted. There were points at which the embankment had been breached by farmers, it had been overgrown with areas prone to flooding, some of the bridge infrastructure had also disappeared, but the main obstacles seemed to be the industrial units which now occupied the area which was the station and the goods yard in Earby. There were other points at which the alignment has been developed for other use in the Colne area. Another major source of inconvenience lay just beyond Earby where the line crossed the A56 on a level crossing, these not the most popular features of a modern railway. There would also be the extensive relaying and re-signalling at the junction with the line to Carlisle on the outskirts of Skipton to consider, which if the estimate for the work to put back the Todmorden Curve at Hall Royd Junction alone is anything to go by, would be astronomical. SELRAP stated they had produced a ‘business case’ for the reopening of this line, which would in fairness provide another route into West and North Yorkshire, but there were reservations. The area beyond Colne to Skipton was sparsely populated and had small stations at Foulridge, Earby, Thornton-in-Craven and Elslack, of which only Earby remained open until the closure, Elslack and Thornton-in-Craven closed in 1952, Foulridge in 1959. One long shot alternative was simply to run trains into Hellifield and reverse them out south towards Skipton. This would require no track laying but scheduling trains to run beyond Clitheroe from the Manchester service to terminate at Hellifield and at least connect to trains from Morecambe, Lancaster and Carnforth which run through Skipton to Leeds and Bradford. There would then be the possibility of reopening stations at Chatburn and Gisburn, both of which serve more populated centres than those between Colne and Skipton. What would be money better spent was the doubling of the section from Darwen to Bromley Cross on the Blackburn to Bolton section of the Clitheroe/Manchester service. This would allow two

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