Feature Rail reopenings Skipton-Colne To Thirsk To Carlisle To Carlisle EAST COAST Settle MAIN A lifeline for East Lancs LINE To Haxby Hellifield Following the last through train to Skipton WEST Skipton Harrogate The campaign to reopen Skipton-Colne is gathering momentum, with the York in 1970, Colne was downgraded to an COAST Department for Transport announcing a full feasibility study and Transport unstaffed halt. Today, it is as basic as the MAIN LINE railway gets. A bus shelter, a ticket machine Colne Secretary Chris Grayling paying a personal visit. TOM INGALL reports Burnley Central and a couple of name boards serve fewer To Hull than 100,000 passengers a year. The short Bradford Leeds Preston Blackburn RAIL photography: TOM INGALL trains arrive, pause for a few minutes, and Drax depart back the way they came. Opposite the Todmorden his is not good news. This is biggest cities - Leeds and Manchester. There was the terminus of the Midland Railways entrance ramp, weeds are claiming the paving Manchester Bolton Huddersfield To Barnsley fantastic news!” are job opportunities there. extension from Skipton. Six months later, the slabs of the former eastbound platform, which Piccadilly Peter Bryson, chairman “People from here should be able to get there East Lancashire Railway arrived from the still survives. The whole branch from Burnley Doncaster Tuebrook Key of the Skipton and East by safe, effi cient and modern public transport. other direction and through running across was singled in the 1980s. Biomass train route: “TLancashire Rail Action Partnership It’s as simple as that.” this part of the Pennines became possible. Contrast this with the potential destination. To Glossop Liverpool to Drax (SELRAP), is in ebullient mood, quite against It is, of course, still possible to take a train A familiar story of rise and fall followed. Skipton railway station is staffed, has Liverpool Network Rail Lime Street the prevailing weather and early hour. A little from Colne to Skipton, but it’s a very long way Station buildings, engine and carriage shed, witnessed substantial investment following To StockportTo Sheffield Closed line wet snow falls on the platform at Colne, in round and it will take you nearly three hours. freight facilities… all have come and gone. The electrifi cation of the Aire Valley lines from Station Lancashire, as a welcoming committee grows Bryson continues: “We have a regular Beeching report, however, did not recommend Leeds, and welcomed 1.1 million passengers in size - not for the hourly service to Preston, challenge between the train operator Arriva the route for closure. And as late as 1967, a in 2016-17. More than nine million passengers For clarity some lines/ stations are omitted but instead for the arrival of Secretary of State and one of our old age pensioners, who is Ministry for Transport report identifi ed the used the Airedale Line in Yorkshire in 2017. Chester To Crewe Diagrammatic map for Transport Chris Grayling. a runner. He can run from here to Skipton, line not only for retention, but as the future What remains of the line between the two is not to scale Since it was established in 2001, quicker than you can get the train. You ONLY route into Skipton! tantalising. The trackbed is for the large part campaigning and convincing others to couldn’t invent it in the 21st century!” But a year later, everything changed. Skipton unobstructed, in part in public ownership, for reinstatement. This was followed in 2003 Further north there are drainage issues, join the cause, this is a special moment for When the railway fi rst arrived in Colne, the would retain its other lines, and instead although not without challenges. Very early in by a Steer Davies Gleave study, commissioned small level crossings (of the sort which have SELRAP. The Government has announced it buffer stops would have been at the other end the railway to Colne and the remaining its campaigning, SELRAP produced its own by Lancashire and North Yorkshire County become a complication for the proposals to will fund a full feasibility study into rebuilding of the platform. Opened in 1848, the station intermediate stations would shut. report about the work that would be required Councils. reopen the March-Wisbech line) to reinstate the railway across county boundaries, back Signifi cantly, at the time there were serious or remove, and at the village of Earby domestic into Yorkshire to connect just north of Skipton proposals for a new road to bypass several gardens have encroached onto the formation. (RAIL 846). villages and to better link the two counties, Bridges need replacing, a gas main has been A forlorn set of rusting buffer stops stand at and which would have been built over the laid along a section of the route, and fi nally, the end of the single-track line through Colne redundant formation. The road cost was given just before the junction at Skipton (about half platform. Since February 2 1970, they have as £37 million, while the basic single-track a mile north of the station), the town bypass fended off potential commuters and passenger railway proposal was estimated at £33m. has also driven across the trackbed on an fl ows. Just 12 miles of track bed separates The two most serious obstacles to reopening embankment. Clearly some sort of substantial them from the rails in Yorkshire. But today, are at either end of the line. new bridge will be required. almost 48 years to the day after closure, there Immediately beyond those buffers at Colne SELRAP now believes the cost of is a feeling of vindication in the air. is an all-weather sports pitch and then a major reinstatement will likely be around £100m. Says Bryson: “As of today, we have nearly road (Vivary Way) bisecting the route. The “There are issues,” acknowledges Bryson. 500 paid-up members, thousands of other latter is likely to need to cross the railway using “There are some local residents who will be supporters, and about 50 businesses backing an underpass, a scheme already designed by affected, but all of the issues are far less serious us. We are a major campaigning group. Lancashire County Council. than those which have been overcome “Very simply, this is about economics, growth and education. Where we are standing in Pendle is one of the most deprived areas in the UK. Yet 30 miles away are two of the Right: About a mile north of Colne, the formation passes under Red Lane bridge. Besides the obvious clearance work required, new drains will also have to be installed if the Skipton-Colne line is to reopen. Below: Attached to Red Lane bridge, a modern sign confi rms that the trackbed is not a public right of way. 64 RAIL 848 March 14 - March 27 2018 March 14 - March 27 2018 RAIL 848 65 Feature Rail reopenings elsewhere in the UK - for example, on the Borders Railway. That £100m is a realistic fi gure which has been verifi ed by people in the industry.” Other consultants have followed up the Steer Davies Gleave report. A large part of SELRAP’s work has been not only keeping the project in the public eye, but also refreshing and updating the evidence base for it. The costs will, of course, depend to a great extent on what sort of railway is rebuilt. In its 2003 report, Steer Davies Gleave considered options but noted that local passenger fl ows alone would barely justify the reopening, and also that the potential for freight operations appeared to be very low. Fifteen years later, and it seems the mood music on the latter point has changed. Awaiting the Transport Secretary’s arrival in Colne are a number of prominent business players, including Andy Koss, the chief executive of Drax Power Station (some 65 miles away near Selby). “We’ve been involved in the campaign from an early time,” he confi rms. “The railways are a lifeline for our business, There were a number of small crossings along the line. At Slipper Hill, about a mile and a half north of much of which comes through Peel Port in Colne station, the crossing gate posts still stand (almost!) waiting for a train. Liverpool. It takes up to nine hours to do the 90 miles from Liverpool to Drax by rail. Time has marched on, and this is now a Another challenge for the campaign has Opening this line would bring that down much bigger proposal than a Borders-style been the need to reach outside of traditional to three hours. This will give us much more passenger railway. With talk of major new local and regional government boundaries. from Lancashire. “It’s vital for the sustainable It takes up to nine The end of the line. The buffer stops at Colne on resilience in the supply chain by providing traffi c fl ows, it is clear that the feasibility This area does not speak with the voice of one growth of the business that we can attract February 3 2018. It’s hard to believe a double-track more capacity. study will be examining a double-track line. authority. talent, and there is a huge pool of talent in East hours to do the 90 miles railway once continued northwards from here. The “As a nation, we can benefi t from a fast, Likewise, beyond the core proposal, Burnley Bryson explains: “The trans-Pennine Lancashire and north Manchester.” from Liverpool to Drax all-weather football pitch can be seen, as can the effi cient railway that allows more free to Colne is expected to be double-tracked.