Blackburn Cathedral	River Ribble at Ribchester	Click to access CRL news	Whalley Viaduct	Clitheroe Castle
For information about the items listed below, click on the underlined part or image		Hellifield Station

 

 

To read this issue click above

 

 

 

 

 

	xx

 

To download the pdf version (1.24 MB) as originally printed, click here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return to the Top

Return to the RVR Home Page

 

 

 

Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway   CYCLING INTO RAILWAY HISTORY   NEW LEAFLET AVAILABLE   North Lancashire Loop - Blackburn - Clitheroe   To access this leaflet click below   7 July 2011

Copies of this leaflet will be available at the usual outlets

 

 

 

 

CYCLING INTO RAILWAY HISTORY

To view others in the series, click on the selected station below Hapton Burnley Barracks

 

Return to the Top

Return to the RVR Home Page

 

 

 

Data compiled by Simon Clarke

 

Return to the Top

Return to the RVR Home Page

 

 

 

 

 

ACoRP Information

To visit the website of ACoRP click photo

SCENIC BRITAIN by TRAIN 2010/11 Edition     This publication showcases many of the Scenic Rail Lines around Britain. Most of the lines featured are supported by Community Rail Partnerships. Our many rural branch lines take you to some of Britain's most beautiful scenery and loveliest villages, and they're connected to all parts of the country by the high quality, frequent, InterCity Rail network.   To get a printed copy, please contact the ACoRP office below:   Rail and River Centre Canal Side Civic Hall 15a New Street Slaithwaite HUDDERSFIELD HD7 5AB   Phone: 01484 847790 Fax: 01484 847877 E-mail: office@acorp.uk.com   or, for a pdf copy, click on the panel below, which depicts the section in the brochure, highlighting the West & East Lancashire, Ribble Valley and South Fylde Lines:

 

HISTORICAL POSTERS Further posters in this fascinating and well-researched series are now available for viewing on the Lancashire Community Rail website

Click the above poster to view others in the series or the list below

Accrington Bamber Bridge Blackburn Brierfield Bromley Cross Burnley Barracks Burscough Junction Clitheroe Colne Croston Entwistle Hapton Langho Nelson Ormskirk Ramsgreave & Wilpshire Rose Grove Rufford Whalley

 

Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Cycling into Railway History Padiham to Rose Grove (Padiham Loop) To view, click below

The Corresponding Leaflet is now available at the usual outlets

 

 

 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

COMMUNITY RAIL LANCASHIRE now has its own website For a direct link to this well-designed, attractive and informative site click here or the above photograph or the CRCLP Logo at the top of the page

NK writes: Visitors to the RVR website may also be interested in the following additions to the above Community Rail Lancashire website:   - NEWS CUTTINGS -   COFFEE CART CATCHES CUSTOMERS Accrington Eco Station now boasts a coffee cart – Neil Sheridan, a local Accrington entrepreneur has negotiated with Lancs County Council and Northern Rail to allow him to operate a hot drinks business on the station. Neil started recently on the coldest day so far this autumn, selling teas and coffees (and hot Vimto) to customers as they wait for their trains. Ideally situated, just outside the booking office, the coffee cart is already doing brisk trade. All the tea and coffee is from fairtrade sources, and even the Vimto has a low carbon footprint, with only lorry miles from Derbyshire or Yorkshire. Neil is intending to be on site, at the station, Monday to Saturday from 06.30 to 18.00.     £400k FACELIFT FOR DARWEN STATION Improvements worth £400,000 will be carried out at Darwen railway station in the next 12 months. After almost three years of talks about enhancements, Blackburn with Darwen Council has secured £200,000 ‘matched' funding from Network Rail's National Station Improvement Programme (NSIP). The changes will focus on improved security, better passenger shelters and information, and the installation of self serve ticket machines. For further details, click logo below:     LANCASHIRE CYCLING NEWS The latest edition of Lancashire Cycling News has just been published and the newsletter contains two articles pertinent to the Lancashire Community Rail Partnerships. For further details, please click the logo below:     GREAT DAYS OUT Another in the series of Northern Rail's great line guides has just been launched. The new guide, produced in partnership with the West of Lancs Community Rail Partnership, is aimed at promoting the use of the Wigan to Southport and Preston to Ormskirk lines and features places to visit and suggestions of things to do! For continuation, please click below:       PLATFORMS TO BE LENGTHENED Network Rail are in the final stages of the process to seek approval to start work on the lengthening of the platforms on the stations on the Blackburn to Clitheroe Line (Ribble Valley Line). They hope to be on site in July or August 2011, with a completion date around the end of December 2011. Please click photo for continuation   xxXXXXXXXXXXPhoto: S. Clarke     DESIGN STUDY GETS CRDF BOOST The East Lancashire Community Rail Partnership has successfully made the first bid for funding from the Community Rail Development Fund (CRDF) for the  2011/12 financial year. The Department for Transport, Network Rail and ACoRP, sponsors of the Community Rail Development Fund have agreed to to a bid for money to support  a design study for the re-vamp of  Burnley Manchester Road station. Burnley Manchester Road station has just been included within the East Lancashire service/line designation by the DfT, and is on the Blackpool North to York inter-regional service operated by Northern Rail.  Lancashire County Council in partnership with Burnley Borough Council, the East Lancashire CRP, Network Rail and Northern Rail is looking into the feasibility of introducing a direct service from (Blackburn, Accrington) Burnley to Manchester Victoria via a reinstated Todmorden Curve.  If successful, this will more than double patronage at the station. For further details, please click photo below Left: Burnley Manchester Road Station . Photo: Courtesy Lancs & Yorks Railway Society       WALKING & CYCLING for health The Lancashire Community Rail Partnerships actively encourage people to exercise for health reasons and below are a number of guides using the railways to access walks and cycle rides, including some walks that include disused railway lines, and even a walk to a railway that was never built. For further information, click here     TIDE TIMES The Lancashire Community Rail Partnerships are pleased to announce a new service is now available via the links page. High tide times are crucial to those visiting the coast, whether for the day, for a holiday, fishing or to catch a ferry.  The tide times pages give the current days high and low tide times, and also the next six days as a forecast. Click here to access the link. Updated: 24/11/2011

 

 

MEET ME AT THE STATION

NK writes, incorporating text from the Community Rail Lancashire Website, and reproduced with kind permission of Simon Clarke:   I had the pleasure of attending the official opening of the 'Meet Me at the Station' project by Lois Rimmer, Ribble Valley Mayor on Saturday 22nd May 2010. I did manage to take a few very modest photographs, none of which I felt completely captured the true nature and flavour of the displays, a personal visit to the gallery therefore is really needed, and, whilst I often let the photographs themselves tell the story, here it will be helpful to be aware of the background.   The project, which saw Ribble Valley Schools working with local artist Alastair Nicholson to create a huge number of ‘mini-me' plasticine models,  is displayed in the Platform Gallery in Clitheroe. As well as the plasticine figures, are models of the five stations between Blackburn and Clitheroe, along with an animated short film of the  journey along the Ribble Valley Line, which are also on display. Children are being encouraged to get involved when they visit the exhibition by making their own ‘mini-me' models and adding them to the ‘platforms' below a specially-created vinyl banner on the outside of the gallery.     The 'Meet Me at the Station' project has also been expanded to include a photographic exhibition with the same theme.   Two schools, which have been involved in the ‘Brian the Bull' project, have written railway-themed poetry as feedback, and these are displayed on the fence, close to the railway, at the rear of the gallery as a ‘poetry ribbon' . Inside the gallery is a large amount of artwork by the children, and this includes charcoal sketches of the pieces of railwayania that have been excavated from the disused Great Harwood Loop Line close to Padiham Green Primary School. The children from St. Mary's RC Primary and Padiham Green Primary Schools have also been able to record their poetry, thanks to links with The Grand in Clitheroe. The recordings will be played both inside and outside at the Gallery over the three weeks of the exhibition between Saturday 22nd May and 12th June 2010. The Platform Gallery is open Monday to Saturday 10.00 to 16.00. The project has been funded by the Aggregates Levy and Ribble Valley Borough Council and is supported by the Clitheroe Line & East Lancashire Community Rail Partnerships and Ribble Valley Rail.

 

The full collection of photos, shown below, complete with captions and details of photographers, can now be viewed on the Community Rail Lancashire website. For an express link, click here

 

 

	Railway artefacts discovered by Padiham Green Primary Schools during an archeological dig close to the site of the former Padiham Station and subsequently drawn (see left)
	Blackburn Station Figures   produced by   Daisyfield Primary School, Blackburn     Left: 'Through a Train Window' drawings
	To visit the corresponding section on the Community Rail Lancashire website, click here

GREAT WALL OF DAISYFIELD Click above picture for details

OPENING CEREMONY XXXXX XX3 March 2010

Photos: Brian Haworth

 

GREAT WALL OF DAISYFIELD

Return to the Top

Return to the RVR Home Page

.

Community Rail Day - 17th May 2008   Photos To view a selection of photos taken during Community Rail Day 17 May 2008, click here   Photographic Competition Click here to see the results. To view the first six winning entries, click here.   Report by Northern Rail on the Community Rail Day After the very successful weekend, Ribble Valley Rail was pleased to receive a copy of Northern's comprehensive report, written by Dr. Paul Salveson, and extracts, relevant to Lancashire, may be read by clicking here. . Programme of Events for Community Rail in NORTH WEST ENGLAND To view the very well-produced and informative leaflet, which gave full details, click here .

Rail Ramblers - The Home of Lancashire Rail Ramblers

now have their own website, which is very well-laid out, most informative and well-worth a visit even by non-ramblers

http://www.railramblers.com

There is also reference to the RVR website viz.

ACoRP website

RVR Cab Ride Trailer

.

.

Watch This Space Below

 

Select a picture, and then double-click on the arrow at its centre

Above and below are very brief extracts from RVR's series of DVD Cab Rides.

For further information, and how to purchase any of these DVDs,

please click here.

 

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BARBARA CASTLE - Naming Ceremony Sunday 21st September 2008 at Blackburn Station

After the naming, Janet Anderson MP, Sonya Hinton, Steve Butcher (Northern Rail) and Lord Taylor of Blackburn, together with younger relatives of Barbara Castle, stand for photographs. The named unit has been ‘wrapped' with an attractive display, featuring Barbara Castle and members of the Passenger Transport Executive Group (PTEG), and is shown standing at Blackburn Station before its inaugural journey to Manchester Oxford Road. The vestibule within the train features a poster, which explains the work done by Barbara Castle. Scroll below for a more legible version of the text contained in the above poster. Speeches were made by (left to right) Ruth Kelly (Secretary of State for Transport), Neil Scales (Chairman, PTEG) and Heidi Mottram (Managing Director, Northern Rail). Photos and captions by D. J. Butterworth Baroness Castle of Blackburn Born into a politically active family, and brought up in Pontefract and Bradford, Barbara Castle was the youngest woman in Parliament when she became MP for Blackburn in 1945. In 1965 she was the first woman to become Minister of Transport and only the fourth woman to sit in Cabinet. Clever, fiery, hard-working, decisive, and with a flair for publicity, she made the most of her time at the Ministry by pragmatically applying her strongly held views on the importance of a planned approach to transport. Among her achievements were giving the railways a future by putting them on a more secure financial footing, and by preventing some of the worst excesses of Dr. Beeching's closure plans. She also saved hundreds of miles of canals by giving them a new role for amenity and leisure.Many lives were saved through new seatbelt and drink-driving legislation She also created new and powerful urban transport authorities, giving them the job of providing inregrated public transport networks that cities need. As a result, over the last four decades the Passenger Transport Executives and Authorities have been able to invest billions in providing better public transport for the largest conurbations in the North and Midlands.

 

.

To view photos of Santa Services 2009   click either photo

.

Return to the Top

Return to the RVR Home Page

.

Santa Services 2007

Community Rail Day on the Ribble Valley Line - 19 May 2007

Clitheroe Festival Weekend 17 and 18 May 2008   To view the exceptionally attractive leaflet published by Cltheroe The Future, which contained full details of the very extensive programme of events, please click here

.

.

.

.

.

Community Rail Day   Blackburn & Clitheroe Stations   Saturday 19th May 2007   **************   A montage of photos of some of the activities, which were held on the day, can now be viewed by clicking here **************

.

Community Rail Weekend 2008

Photographic Competition

.

1stt		Steam on the Royal Train crossing Ribblehead Viaduct     by Dean Weaver
2nd		Father & Two sons watching Class 47 at Preston     by Ken Roberts
3rd		Lord Nelson at Bentham     by Wendy Smith
4th		Mother & son on Keighley & Worth Valley Railway     by Ken Roberts
5th =		Princess Elizabeth at Langwathby     by Matt Clarke
5th =		Santa Services 2007     by Nigel Kirby

	‘NORTHERN - Stakeholder Specials' To Keighley & Worth Valley Railway and Haworth Sunday 13 July 2008
	RVR was one of many similar organisations invited to join one of three specially-chartered trains to Keighley ( click here for timings ). A small contingent travelled from Ribble Valley Line stations to join at Bolton their allocated special (four immaculate 156s) where they were cordially greeted by Northern Staff, and subsequently provided on board with very edible and enjoyable snacks, a quiz and attractively-produced Commemorative Literature. On arrival at Keighley, guests were entertained to a delightful Buffet Lunch, to the strains of the melodious Harrogate Brass Band, and then allowed the freedom of the Worth Valley Railway for the day. On the return journey, water and wine were provided, both beverages being most welcome on a relatively-rare warm and sunny day, along with individual copies of the DVD "Northern - A Community Railway", detailing a few examples of their commitment. I am sure that all guests were highly impressed with Northern's organisation of the event, which would have involved extensive planning at various levels and stages, sheer hard work and professionalism, so much in evidence on the day itself, and which, in turn, helped to promote a most convivial atmosphere. Grateful thanks, therefore, are extended to Northern, and also the Worth Valley Railway, as good as ever, for their hospitality, providing everyone with a splendid and quite memorable day-out, and whose joint efforts are so very much appreciated. NK

 

		xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
	Arrival at Keighley		RVR Chairman, Peter Moore, conversing with Northern's MD, Heidi Mottram.
	The excellent Harrogate Brass Band, and trips in a brake van, provided additional entertainment.		Awaiting the arrival of a Worth Valley train on Platform 4.
	Peter Moore, surrounded by three RVR members, Heather Fairclough, Marian Fox & Kathleen Sharples, all enjoying their refreshments.		Peter Moore now joined by senior Northern staff, Tricia Riley, Area Director North and Wayne Dixon, Area Station Manager North
	Awaiting departure for Oxenhope		Ken Roberts in a dual role as a member of both RVR and the Worth Valley Railway.
	RVR stalwarts, Brian Haworth, Brian Race, joined by Ken Roberts, outside the well-patronised Buffet Car.		RVR Hon. Sec. and current Worth Valley chairman, Peter Eastham, joined by Dr. Paul Salveson, MBE and Phil Mills from Northern.
	RVR member, Dean Weaver, accompanied by his grandson, and who both thoroughly enjoyed their day-out on the trains.		Another prominent RVR member, Byron Littlewood, pictured on the ramp to Platform 4, en-route to join a Worth Valley Line train.
	A Northern Skipton - Leeds EMU calls at Platform 1		A Northern Carlisle-bound train passing under the road bridge at Keighley but the rail journey would be truncated at Settle due to engineering work on the S&C
			Photos: N. Kirby
	Return to the start of this feature

.

.