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I'm an Accringtonian living in Silverdale, Staffs. I was lucky enough to see the last few coal trains leaving the pit before it finally closed and they lifted the track. I've seen 47's and 37s on the Chesterton colliery branch, struggling up the curved incline and like many others lament the fact that Beeching saw fit to close the Market Drayton to Stoke line in the 60's. The saving in car travel congestion and expensive bus fares if that had still been open - even as a light railway - would have been immense.
I still remember pre-Beeching days - multi-school excursions from Accrington to places like Chester, Southport, New Brighton (trip including Royal Iris!) with heaven kinows how many old Mk1 saloon coaches hauled by a grubby Black 5 (or "Jub" if we were lucky!) I still remember family hols to Fleetwood and also being able to use the East Lancs platform at Preston for the Todd Lane junction route - never liked the Farington Curve route which always seemed like an afterthought!. The number of conflicting movements that would have been avoided if Todd Lane junction had been kept open (including all the Whitehouse Junctions) is truly remarkable, plus the flexibility that BR lost through closing them. Hindsight, eh?

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the Forum Bigmacca. Look forward to your posts.

Best wishes,

John H-T.

Thanks for the welcome! My sentiments are well and truly framed by the British Railways/British Rail era and although I wish I could say something nice about privatisation I find it difficult. EMUs/DMUs everywhere, standing room only on long distance trains, no joined-up-railway-thinking! Let's get back to the 'can do' 70's and 80's where nothing was too much trouble and you could use one ticket for an entire journey! Yeah the DMU's were manky, the sandwiches in the buffet were of uncertain antiquity and the station toilets were straight out of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes but hey, we had a railway that was OURS...not some bloody shareholders or entrepreneurs who only thought of the 'bottom line'....not necessarily a 'railway line.'!