BRANCH LINE    ISSUE 73

November / December 2003

THE TRANQUILITY OF A VILLAGE STATION...is momentarily disturbed, as Sprinter Class 150 rumbles across the level crossing, and into Moss Side. Network Rail have advocated less or no maintenance for secondary lines that would see a saving in the region of £5 billion pounds, but would it be false economy? All that they’d be left with is a backlog of outstanding jobs that in all probability would cost more than the savings made. Question, do the intended savings include weed killer?  It does look like Mother Nature is doing her best to reclaim the level crossing !

CHAIRMAN’S COLUMN

Well I suppose that there was an air of inevitability about it, as Blackpool Council planning committee approved the demolition of Bloomfield Road bridge. We had tried just about everything we knew to try and get it saved – we even approached the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to see if they would agree to give the bridge listed status, after all it is a hundred years old. Unfortunately, they could not agree to our request, as the bridge was not of sufficient historical interest.

So the days of Bloomfield Bridge are numbered, and it just needs the permission of the Deputy Prime Minister’s office to give the go ahead, and I’ve no doubt work will start fairly quickly. However, the cost of demolition together with having to remodel the road system is going to cost in the region of £2.75 million and these costs were based on a survey carried out by Blackpool Council in May 2001, so inevitably this expenditure will have risen. Can it be considered value for money?  As a Blackpool resident, I’m not at all happy with the thought of part of my council tax going towards the demolition of something I would rather see kept.

Moving swiftly on, I think we’ve hit the silly season once again – does it ever go away?  Firstly, the Strategic Rail Authority in its guide lines for the Northern franchise, have asked prospective bidders to look at the possibility of running buses instead of trains on lines where passenger usage is light during the off peak. There’s one very efficient way of putting passengers off using trains, and that’s to substitute them with buses – remember Beeching where buses replaced train services, and in a lot of cases the buses were themselves withdrawn after a couple of years because nobody used them! 

Then of course Network Rail has suggested that if they don’t carry out maintenance on rural lines, they could save a bob or two. It really makes you think which faceless wonders in both of these departments, are being paid a king’s ransom to come up with drivel like this. It’s enough to make you think that we should re - nationalise the railway system! 

COMMUTING TO MANCHESTER FROM LYTHAM – 1930’s STYLE

‘Preston, Wigan Warrington, Crewe and London!’  ‘Salford and Manchester only!’

These and similar mantras had to be shouted every morning by the porters at Lytham Station in the spacious years of the 30’s and 40’s before public address systems were provided. They linger in my memory still. The town had enjoyed an incomparable train service in those days. What wonderful lungs the porters had! How articulate they were! There were none of the electronic distortions we have become used to which now make announcements unintelligible.

Lytham Station, solidly built, with a colonnaded forecourt, seemed a quaint old – fashioned sort of place. Outside, Mr.Bonney would sit, wearing a bowler hat, waiting for custom for his horse – drawn carriage. On the platforms there were flowerbeds, beautifully maintained by staff who took a real pride in their place of work. However, there was nothing old – fashioned about the trains that came down the line from Blackpool each morning. These were drawn by the latest generation of steam locomotives and were made up of a central core of first class saloon coaches, with some limited room at the front and rear for ‘third class’ passengers. The ‘customers’ were mainly merchants heading for the Manchester Cotton Exchange or their own businesses, travelling on ‘trader’s tickets’ which cost a fraction of the normal fare. They could read the papers, play cards with friends, smoke (of course, everyone smoked), or sleep away the 80 minutes it took to reach Manchester.

There were express trains to Manchester at 7.25, 8.00 and 8.20 (calling at Bolton), and a ‘Club Train’ (Members only) at 8.30. Even in wartime, delays were infrequent. For the return, there were fast trains at 3.55, 4.20, 5.14 and 5.55, as far as I remember. The other star of the timetable was the Fylde Coast Express, often pulled by a Jubilee class engine. This left for London Euston about 8.15 and returned about 7.30.

Rumour had it that key directors of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway Company lived in St.Annes and ensured that they always had the latest locomotives and rolling stock for their daily journey to Hunt’s Bank, their head office at Victoria Station in Manchester. The other legend was that Squire Clifton had insisted that all trains passing through his estates must stop at all stations. If this was true, the Squire certainly did Lytham and my generation a great favour.

From summer 1941 until December 1954, with an interval of four years for service in the RAF, I travelled daily between Lytham and Manchester, usually on six days each week, and always ‘third class’. People knew their place in those days. There was no nonsense about ‘standard class’ to avoid giving offence. It was a sociable journey. Many of the friends who travelled with me were attending university – I was going to work. During those years, I learnt the route as thoroughly as any train driver and could look out at any moment and tell you where we were and whether we were running on time, or running late. I watched the construction of the great Ordnance factory at Euxton and later the ‘Atomic’ at Salwick, and never tired of the view of Winter Hill as its aspect changed throughout the seasons.

After leaving Lytham, I had a break from train travel for six years and then began again. Now I was living in Woking, (28 minutes from Waterloo, as the estate agents put it). Frequently, due to the pressure of commuters, I stood in the guard’s van all the way to town, and all the way home again. There was nothing sociable about it. Everyone was silent and absorbed in a book or papers. As years passed, I went in earlier and came home later, this made it easier to get a seat. After twenty four years I stopped travelling daily to London. This was the first and best bonus of retirement.

I went back to Lytham recently and looked at the station timetable. Say no more………

(Thanks to member Alistair Elliott for sending me a copy of ‘The Antiquarian’ which is the newsletter of the Lytham Heritage group, and which this story was taken from – Ed).

BLACKPOOLS MASTERPLAN :

BLOOMFIELD ROAD BRIDGE 

At a meeting of the Development Control Committee on September the 1^st, Blackpool’s (Planning) councillors examined an application to alter parts of the car park area (central corridor), which is the prime road entrance to the town for many visitors. The package of changes included re – routing the ‘spine’ road, introducing an area of parkland, making footways to connect with the local streets on the seaward side of the area, and demolition of Bloomfield Road bridge. 

BAFRUA formally objected to the removal of the bridge, so as to allow a future rail or tramway extension towards a more central Blackpool terminus. At the meeting, out Treasurer Vernon Smith, was allowed to speak for 1½ minutes to expand on our objection, as was another objector, about a different aspect of the package. The full agenda for the meeting was 80 pages, of which 17 were devoted to this application. After a period of discussion among themselves, the councillors approved the application. At this stage it is still only ‘outline’, and specific details may yet be subject to further formal exam and approval.

Approval was granted on the basis of 16 conditions, and potentially need not start for five years, though it is likely to do so earlier in view of the general Council view that Blackpool’s regeneration should start soon.

THE COMMITTEE’S VIEW ON THE BLACKPOOL TRAMWAY 

Two years ago, Blackpool Borough Council produced a plan to upgrade and expand the existing tramway. It recognised that the system had been neglected for too long, and was getting to a situation whereby funding was urgently needed. Part of the plan showed tram tracks appearing down the central corridor, passing underneath Bloomfield Road bridge, past Blackpool Football Club and onto the site of the old Central station, and back on to the promenade from there. Additional to that, the plan encompassed using the mothballed freight line from Poulton to just outside Fleetwood, and also using part of the South Fylde line to extend tram running to either St.Annes or Lytham.