Accrington Railways - Robert Kenyon

side of the station, a fair distance from the booking office. It was described as bearing out the character of the existing platform as it is “more ornamental than useful!” It wasn’t very popular with the porters either, who had to transfer luggage over the footbridge or by means of a boardwalk. On Monday, the 22 nd , yet another shunting accident occurred at the station, when an empty rake of stock ran down the incline into the rear of a train standing in the Blackburn siding. The driver of this train shouted a warning to his fireman who was underneath the engine at the time and both managed to get clear, whilst the porter in charge of the runaway carriages received slight facial injuries. Damages amounted to a couple of broken buffer beams and to fourteen axle boxes being smashed. August To coincide with Accrington’s Fair, on Friday, the 12 th , several special trips were booked to run from Accrington. No less than 2,732 tickets were issued, including 792 to Blackpool. On Saturday, the 13 th , the Weavers’ Association ran three trips, to Liverpool for 874 people, whilst Blackpool and Southport each attracted a further 680 passengers. St. James’ along with St. Peter’s schools ran an excursion to Bangor which left at 3:45am carrying 771 people. Of the other 5,311 ordinary passengers passing through 378 were for Haslingden, 169 for Burnley, 142 for Church, 103 for Rishton, 460 for Blackburn and 102 for Preston. On Sunday, the 14 th , the total tickets issued was 1,470, whilst on Monday 574 went on an excursion to Blackpool out of the 2,670 which left town. October Sixsmith’s Railway Timetable & Diary was published, which included details of timetable changes as follows - The 10am express from Accrington to Manchester and the 3:10pm return working would not run on Saturdays. The 5:20pm from Salford to Accrington would now leave five minutes earlier, whilst the 11pm from Salford would run through to Accrington on Thursdays as well as Saturdays. The 2:20pm, 3:42pm & 8:12 Accrington to Preston trains were all withdrawn. The 6:06am Belfast Boat Train would now depart a few minutes earlier. It was hoped that the 9:05pm from Rose Grove to Todmorden would now be extended to start from Accrington. A new train would depart from Skipton to Accrington at 10:25pm, and would only stop in Burnley at 11:31. December More details of the alterations to Accrington Railway Station were announced. The new platform would now be double sided, running from the Burnley line for a distance of 160 yards and 12 yards wide to form a letter ‘V’ on two sides of a triangle. This platform would mainly handle traffic for Blackburn, Preston and Liverpool. A new platform would be constructed on the Paxton Street side of the station, and this would also be 160 yards in length by 8 yards wide. These new platforms would all contain waiting rooms and they would be covered over by canopies, with a double bridge to connect them to the Parcels Office, from outside the Gentlemen’s Waiting Room. Because there would be no booking office at the Paxton Street entrance passengers would have to cross over the footbridge to obtain tickets. The L & Y gave permission for Mr Westinghouse to trial a new form of train lighting. This worked by passing air through oils which formed into a gas which could be ignited to produce a steady light. The system had been found to work in individual carriages, and now he had been given permission to try to illuminate an entire rake of carriages by this method.

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