Colne railway station

Colne
Location
Place	Colne
Local authority	Pendle
Coordinates	53°51′19″N 2°10′56″W / 53.8553°N 2.1822°WCoordinates: 53°51′19″N 2°10′56″W / 53.8553°N 2.1822°W
Grid reference	SD881398
Operations
Station code	CNE
Managed by	Northern
Number of platforms	1
DfT category	F1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	58,401
2005/06	62,056
2006/07	61,098
2007/08	64,533
2008/09	70,412
2009/10	80,034
2010/11	89,148
2011/12	98,026
2012/13	92,146
2013/14	98,114
2014/15	96,830
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Colne from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Colne railway station serves the Lancashire mill town of Colne, England, which is situated close to Pendle Hill. The station, which is managed by Northern, is the terminus of the East Lancashire Line. Trains from Blackpool South run through Preston and Blackburn to Burnley and Colne.

Currently the station only has a single platform and a shelter. The old station was demolished in 1971, after the closure of the line from Colne to Skipton, which had occurred in the previous year.

Services

On Mondays to Saturdays there is an hourly service from Colne to Preston and Blackpool South via Burnley Central serving all local stations en-route.^[1]

On Sundays the service is every two hours. but the new Northern Rail franchise operator Arriva Rail North plans to increase this to hourly in the future.^[2]

History

The station opened on 2 October 1848, as the terminus of the Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway from Bradford and Skipton.^[3] The station became an end-on junction with the East Lancashire Railway's Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington and Colne Extension Railway, which opened on 1 February 1849. By 2 April in the same year the line was part of a through route between Leeds and Liverpool,^[3] but the majority of passenger trains east of Colne were local between Skipton and Colne.^[4]

The station was rebuilt in 1883 with two engine sheds - one for the Midland Railway to the east, one for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to the west (these two companies now owning the respective lines).^[5] In its heyday, the station had regular through links to both Blackpool termini, Fleetwood, Leeds, Liverpool Exchange, Manchester Victoria via Bury Bolton Street and even through coaches to London Euston^[6] via Bolton, Manchester Victoria and Stockport. There were also summer dated services to/from Saltburn (worked in conjunction with the London and North Eastern Railway prior to nationalisation of the railways in 1948) and Llandudno. However, these had all disappeared by the mid-1960s as a result of economies imposed by the British Railways Board, leaving only basic local services to/from Preston and Skipton.

The Beeching cuts of 1964/5 reduced the services along the Skipton–Colne line, and on 2 February 1970 this section closed to all traffic. A year later the station was downgraded to an unstaffed halt following the dismantling of the route towards Earby, the singling of the surviving line from Nelson and the abandonment of the eastbound island platform - all trains henceforth used the former westbound platform, which had its buildings demolished & replaced by a simple waiting shelter.^[5] The Skipton - East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership campaigns to reinstate the Skipton–Colne line.

Notes

1. GB eNRT December 2015 Edition, Table 97
2. Northern Franchise Improvements - DfT
3. Binns, p.8
4. Suggitt, p.73
5. Suggitt, p.75
6. Frater, p.31

References

• Binns, D. (1984), Steam in Airedale, Wyvern Publications, Skipton, ISBN 0-907941-11-7
• Frater, A. (1983) Stopping Train Britain - A Railway Odyssey, Hodder & Staughton Ltd, London. ISBN 0-340-32451-1
• Rush, R.W., (1983), The East Lancashire Railway, The Oakwood Press, ISBN 0-85361-295-1
• Suggitt, G. (2004 reprint), Lost Railways of Lancashire, Countryside Books, Newbury, ISBN 1-85306-801-2
• Taylor, S., (1994), The Railways of Colne, Lancashire, Scenes from the Past No. 23, Foxline Publishing, ISBN 1-870119-35-5

External links

• Train times and station information for Colne railway station from National Rail