Line Clear - in memory of Harry Gardner

Yesterday, friends and family said goodbye to Harry Gardner. Harry was a friend and all-round good guy. He also had an encyclopaedic knowledge of signalling and signal boxes around the North West.

Many years ago, we created a website called Line Clear, which consisted of Harry's photos, drawings and informative text, detailing some of the signal boxes which he worked during his career on the railway. It represents a tiny fraction of the knowledge he possessed, but does at least serve as a memorial to a lovely man with a passion for railways, taken from us far too soon.

Line Clear is part of the Preston Station Past & Present website and can be found in the Links menu.

https://www.prestonstation.org.uk/lineclear/

Rail 200 Inspirations at the Ribble Steam Rly

The Ribble Steam Railway will be hosting Inspiration exhibition train -  part of the Railway 200 celebrations to mark this year’s bicentenary of the modern railway. The exhibition was designed and created in partnership with Network Rail and the National Railway Museum in York, part of the Science Museum Group.

You can visit the Inspiration at the Ribble Steam Railway between 6th and 9th January 2026.

Join us in celebrating 200 years of the modern railway by visiting Inspiration: The Railway 200 Exhibition Train at Ribble Steam Railway.

https://railway200.co.uk/location/ribble-steam-railway/

New by author Mark Bartlett - a regular contributor to this website..

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway had several routes that converged end on with the Midland Railway route from Skipton at Colne. The history of these lines is of course more complicated as the two large pre-grouping railway companies took over various lines whose promoting companies had been absorbed by ever larger railways. Once busy with freight and excursion traffic, as well as local passenger trains, many of these lines closed in the 1960s and 1970s but the Blackburn to Colne line has survived and the campaign to reopen the Colne to Skipton route continues. This volume looks at the stations, routes and traffic from the Victorian era to the present day.

 More Information / Purchase online

New Station History Poster

 A new poster has been unveiled in the Waiting Room, showing the history of the station. The poster was created by student Billy Burton from Clitheroe Royal Grammar School.

More info here

New Book for the BR Blue enthusiasts

'BR Blue: Scenes from the British Rail Corporate Image Era' by Martyn Hilbert.
Martyn's books are always superb, with top-notch photographs and informative/detailed captions.
The book has 96 pages, with a detailed, illustrated introduction, 165 colour images showing the BR system region-by-region during the BR blue era.
ISBN : ‎978-1781558645.
Available from Amazon, all good bookshops or directly from the publisher Fonthill Media

New book - Preston to Lancaster

Take the 21 mile trip from Preston to Lancaster today and you will experience a smooth journey taking under twenty minutes but back in the 1840s it was a very bumpy ride due to a multitude of problems. The route was host to a number of intermediate stations now all gone but, for anyone with a keen eye, this album will help identify some of those former landmarks. It also includes some rarely seen shots of the original line from the south into Lancaster along with extensive coverage of Preston station.

Available from Middleton Press - and all good bookshops.

Full Review : Here

Goahead for Poulton to Fleetwood re-opening.

The government has given approval for the re-opening of the line from Poulton-le-Fylde to Fleetwood, with funding coming from the Restoring Your Railway pot. 

The news comes after years of campaigning by the PWRS and other groups.

BBC Website