Welcome to the new-look web-site...

Updates have been a bit thin-on-the-ground of late - I'll try to do better in future! Anyway, here, finally, is the new website. I hope you like it.

Please get in touch if you find any glaring errors, or if you think you can help with information or material for the website. In fact, feel free to get in touch for any reason at all - it's always good to know that people are viewing the website!

At the moment, most of the content here is the same as the old site, but spruced up a little. The big additionhowever, is the Photo Archive, which holds all the photos I have available to use on the website. If you have photos to add, I'd be very interested to hear from you.

Introduction

Perhaps Blackrod has never been a major location on the railway map, but it was once a junction station on the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway with over 70 departures a day, three platforms, a goods yard and a manned ticket office. Now, just a couple of platforms and "bus shelters", Blackrod Station was once much more.

To its inhabitants, it's still known as "the village", but Blackrod is probably too large to be accurately described as such. However, when the railway came, the station was named after Blackrod's larger neighbour, Horwich. The station went through a number of name changes, starting out as "Horwich Road" before being renamed "Horwich & Blackrod". In 1870, it became "Horwich Junction" to reflect the fact that the Horwich branch had opened, but just three years later, in February 1873, the station became "Horwich and Blackrod Junction". Finally, in April 1888, the station became simply "Blackrod".