Preston station’s historic glazing gets identical looking modern replacement

A major restoration project on Preston station’s glazed frontage is complete making it safe and reliable for passengers on the West Coast main line. The £600,000 Great North Rail Project investment has seen the North side of the 140-year-old station transformed with new glazing and a specially designed window frame system. Full Story on the Railcam News page.

Preston Tram update

Reports have circulated of track clearance around the Skeffington Rd area, leading to hopes that the much delayed Guild Line is making progress. Sadly, it seems that the clearance is unconnected with the demonstration line planned on the former Deepdale / Longridge line. However, Tram Power report good progress and support from local government, leading to a higher level of confidence that the line will go ahead, in all the years since it was first proposed. Fingers crossed!

Something to spend that Christmas Book-Token on!

The latest in Martyn Hilbert's series of North-West books is Network Greater Manchester.

Like the previous two excellent titles (Network North West and Merseyrail Electric), this is basically an "album" type book, stuffed full of photos from the authors own camera, stretching back from the 70s up to the present day. Unlike most books of this type though, the captions are detailed and informative, demonstrating Martyn's depth of knowledge as well as his eye for interesting photographs which capture the infrastructure and atmosphere as well as the trains.

This is highly recommended and an ideal thing on which to spend that book-token / Amazon voucher or Christmas-card cash.

Trampower Latest

Trampower Ltd, the company behind the proposed Guild Line utilising part of the old Deepdale / Longridge branch, have issued the following :

Transport Minister Jesse Norman MP issues invitation to Trampower to provide evidence about tramway costs and effectiveness. Trampower is also proud to be part of the Preston GUILD Line roject, that was one of two schemes cited by the Minister (p.12 para 3.7) as examples of sustainable ways forward. The Preston GUILD Line (www.Prestontrampower.co.uk) will be 4 miles long and carry initially about 2million passengers a year. “The £25million investment will create about 40 skilled and well paid jobs to operate and maintain the tramway” said Prof. Lewis Lesley Chairman of the Preston Tram Team. “We expect that the 6 trams needed will be built in Lancashire using local companies and suppliers, and start a production line needed to supply other new tramways in Britain and possibly abroad” continued the Prof.

Lostock Hall MPD Website

As hinted a few weeks ago, in memory of it's creator, the late Alan Castle, the Lostock Hall MPD website is now back on-line!

It now forms part of the Preston Station website, so has a different address to the one it previously had.

www.prestonstation.org.uk/10D/

Enjoy!

Station Tours...

As part of the nation-wide English Heritage Open Days programme, there will be a series of guided tours of Preston Station. These tours are now in their third year and not normally open to the general public. This year, there will be four tour-guides; two current railwaymen and one former employee at the station from the 1960s, are joined by a local poet to add some extra colour to proceedings.
Tours are on Sat/Sun 8th & 9th September, beginning @ 11.00, 13:00 & 15:00 hrs on both days. Meet Station Frontage.
More information at : wilf.riley@gmx.com

Lostock Hall Reunion - LEP Article

The recent Lostock Hall reunion event, to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of steam, was covered by the LEP. You can read the full article here :
LEP Coverage of the 10D reunion "do".