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 Introduction 

 

This overall view shows the general layout of the station by 1963. Things  to note include the footbridge which gave direct access to the Manchester bound platform from Station Road (where the photographer stands). Also, it seems that by this date, the tracks leading round the goods shed have been cut back and serve as nothing more than short sidings. In truth, activity in the goods yard had probably all but ceased.

 

Click here for a the Blackrod Station Timeline.

 

As a boy I spent many hours at Blackrod, living as I did up the hill, in the "village" its self. Like so many before and since, I was fascinated by railways in general, but I had no idea of what had once been there.

This web-site serves as a store of information and photographs which I have been assembling as part of a planned model railway layout. Whether or not the model will ever materialise is far from certain, but I've enjoyed reading about the station and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway in general. I decided I might as well have it on the Web rather than keeping it to myself, so here it is!

 

To the casual observer, there is little to distinguish Blackrod from any other minor "halt" on the railway system. However, the clues are there for all to see, that Blackrod was once significantly more than two "bus shelters" and a footbridge. Some of these clues are less than obvious - some are glaring!

 

For instance, it is testament to exactly how un-observant I am that I failed to realise that the large building next to the southbound platform is the former goods shed which formed part of a once thriving goods yard. The two large locomotive-sized openings at one end really should have made that fact glaringly apparent! (see two photos at the head of this page...) Less obvious, but still easy to see is the evidence of the original station buildings which shared a wall with the goods shed. Bricked-up doorways and other features are easily visible on the now whitewashed wall which forms the backdrop to the southbound platform.

 

The stone-built wall which curves away behind the goods shed was, I had always assumed, where the Manchester-bound trains joined the main line from the Horwich branch. In fact, that would not have been possible without impossibly sharp curves in the track, and the line which served that purpose swept in some 200 yds further down the line. The maps elsewhere on this site show clearly the layout of the goods yard which originally served the citizens of Blackrod and Horwich in the days before articulated lorries and motorways.

 

Studying aerial photos and old maps reveals a great deal about the sprawling L&YR in the surrounding area. At its peak in L&Y days and into the LMS period, there were several routes associated with the main line through Blackrod which are no longer with us. Some have been obliterated by recent road and housing development whilst others are slowly reverting to nature and visible only by the tell-tale rows of trees, embankments and cuttings. The line from Blackrod to Horwich, being a much more recent casualty is still very much part of the landscape, with the track-bed still intact as far as the former Locomotive Works at Horwich. This map shows the network of lines surrounding Blackrod at the peak of the railway age. The lines are marked with the dates on which they opened.

 

Perhaps inevitably, my curiosity about the railways has extended beyond the area close to Blackrod, and indeed out of Lancashire and Yorkshire. I intend to include on this site some curious railway oddities which I have come across. For example, a recent holiday near Leek in Staffordshire revealed to me the delights of the Leek and Manifold Railway which, being narrow gauge and based on a railway in India, was certainly one of the country's more unusual railways.