Kirkby-In-Ashfield – Where I caught the train bug

Kirkby In Ashfield East Station

This is Kirkby in Ashfield East Station. It was a couple of hundred yards from my Grandad’s Urban Road terraced house in the Nottinghamshire (former) mining town where I was born and lived until the age of 6.

He took me to watch the trains at this very spot in the early 1960’s. Sadly there is no longer a railway or station here but just along the road, probably less than half a mile away, Kirkby has a new station (see photo below) on the Robin Hood Line.

IMG_2575 r

Click on the photos to enlarge them

The photos are amongst my flickr shots at:-

www.flickr.com/photos/86659476@N07/

Is Skelmersdale really going to get a railway station?

As a railway enthusiast, a member of OPSTA and someone who can’t get his head around why when planning this New Town the railway was torn up, the plans of Lancashire County Council and West Lancs Borough Council to correct the errors to the past are fascinating.

Firstly a photo of the old Skelmersdale Station which I purchased recently:-

rsz_skelmersdale_station_-_undated

And Wikipedia says:-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skelmersdale_railway_station

So what’s the plan? To put it simply to take a spur off the Kirkby – Wigan line right into the heart of Skem’.

Is it a runner? Well money and a lot of it is the big issue, probably a £100m plus or minus project. It costs a lot for what can only been seen as a monumental mistake of the 1960’s.

Whether it will be a value for money project when stacked up against other railway investment projects is hard to say but I rank it as being in a similar category to the Robin Hood Line in Nottinghamshire which brought what was then one of the largest Towns in England without a railway station (Mansfield) back onto the railway map in the 1990’s.

Lancashire County and West Lancs Borough can’t be said to be leaders of innovative railway developments. Their lack of campaigning over the years for the Burscough Curves (which could reconnect the Ormskirk – Preston and Southport – Wigan lines) and the County Council seemingly being lukewarm over the much needed investment in the Southport – Wigan line do make you wonder if they have determination to see this challenging project through.

There is a long way to go with this project and I really do hope it is a runner as opposed to a project with a lot of political froth around it but one heading for the sidings.

The photo above is amongst my Flickr shots at:-
www.flickr.com/photos/86659476@N07/