Services on the Copy Pit line in the 1970s

[bluenoxid]

Skipton to Colne was closed in 1970 IIRC and by 1982 Copy Pit appeared to be approaching the same fate with a very irregular freight service. I was wondering what services were using Copy Pit between 1970 and 1982 and what forum members views are on why Copy Pit remained open and Skipton to Colne did not. What was that oil train that staved off closure long enough for the reintroduction of train services

 

[davetheguard]

A daily Immingham to Preston oil train according to Martin Bairstow in his book "The Manchester & Leeds Railway - The Calder Valley Line" ISBN 1 87 1944 22 8.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Copy Pit also saw summer Saturdays-only passenger trains to the seaside in that period. Can't remember exactly which, but Sheffield-Blackpool springs to mind. Good for railtours, too!
I might have timetables if you're interested.

I guess availability for freight was the reason for keeping it open. Bear in mind there were a lot of longish freight-only branches in that period.

 

[ac6000cw]

It assume it would also have been used as a diversionary route for traffic which would have gone via Rochdale normally.

The line was important enough to BR to have been included in the Preston area re-signalling project (which preceded the WCML electrification north of Crewe) in the early 1970s - the whole route from Preston to Todmorden was re-signalled, plus some of the area around Todmorden on the Rochdale - Hebden Bridge line.

 

[muddythefish]

The Copy Pit line was busy with freight from Healey Mills to Rose Grove and the Lancashire power stations right through the 1970s and well into the 1980s. There was also the Burn Naze traffic which went over that route plus other wagonload and parcels services. Excursion traffic from Yorkshire to Blackpool was busy on summer Saturdays too - I remember standing on Blackburn station and watching a procession EE Type 4 -hauled specials heading back over the Pennines after a long day at the seaside. Happy days.

 

[Darren R]

The Copy Pit line was busy with freight from Healey Mills to Rose Grove and the Lancashire power stations right through the 1970s and well into the 1980s. There was also the Burn Naze traffic which went over that route plus other wagonload and parcels services. Excursion traffic from Yorkshire to Blackpool was busy on summer Saturdays too - I remember standing on Blackburn station and watching a procession EE Type 4 -hauled specials heading back over the Pennines after a long day at the seaside. Happy days.

The Copy Pit line was not "busy with freight...well into the 1980s." Rose Grove Marshalling Yards had been modernised and remodelled in the 1960s, but had a very short life and did not last much longer than Rose Grove MPD. I'm not sure when the official closure came, but most of the sidings were lifted when the area was rationalised and re-signalled to Preston PSB in 1972. 'Up' and 'Down' Loops and a couple of through sidings were retained, but by the early 1980s there was very little freight traffic over Copy Pit specifically, or around East Lancashire generally. By 1982 Copy Pit was under threat of closure, as the regular tanker trains had ceased completely by then. Passenger services had dwindled such that there was one Summer Saturdays Only return working from Castleford to Blackpool North; a train that was practically a State Secret, only appearing as a footnote in the Castleford timetables and not advertised at all from Blackburn even though the train called there.

The line was saved by the merger in 1982 of the Burnley Building Society with the Provincial Building Society, whose headquarters were in Bradford. The Society arranged a daily service between Preston and Bradford Interchange. This was paid for by the Society (at least in part) but appeared in public timetables and was a considerable success. As a result of this, BR expanded the service to six trains each weekday (5 SO, but no Sunday service) on an experimental basis from 1st October 1984. Some of the trains were extended to/from Blackpool North, and all-but-one extended from Bradford to Leeds.

 

[Springs Branch]

The line was important enough to BR to have been included in the Preston area re-signalling project (which preceded the WCML electrification north of Crewe) in the early 1970s - the whole route from Preston to Todmorden was re-signalled, plus some of the area around Todmorden on the Rochdale - Hebden Bridge line.

It always surprised me that the Copy Pit line was not singled during the Preston PSB resignalling project in the early 70s - given this was still an era of cuts & rationalisation and, as mentioned, the line had little freight, even fewer passenger services and no obvious prospects at the time.

BR even went to the trouble of retaining an emergency crossover and a remote interlocking room for Preston PSB half way along the line at Copy Pit - just to help out if a bit of emergency single-line working might be required!

One wonders if this was part of long-term planning in the early 1970s for eventual closure of the S&C? (i.e. a few remaining Leeds/Scotland trains could be routed via Copy Pit and Preston).

 

[yorksrob]

BR even went to the trouble of retaining an emergency crossover and a remote interlocking room for Preston PSB half way along the line at Copy Pit - just to help out if a bit of emergency single-line working might be required!

One wonders if this was part of long-term planning in the early 1970s for eventual closure of the S&C? (i.e. a few remaining Leeds/Scotland trains could be routed via Copy Pit and Preston).

I thought the plan was to develop the Little North Western instead. Unless this was a further 'aspiration' in the subtext.

 

[Darren R]

The Beeching Report, had it been implemented fully, would have seen passenger services over Copy Pit being withdrawn but the line retained. At the time the traffic surveys were done for the report, Copy Pit was carrying between 10,000 and 50,000 tons of freight each week. With the new yards at Rose Grove at one end and Healey Mills at the other, it was anticipated that freight would continue to be at healthy levels over Copy Pit.

The Settle & Carlisle was to have been closed, and the local passenger service over the Little North Western withdrawn but the line was to have its remaining passenger services "modified." Beeching rarely went into further details as to what exactly that meant, so we can only speculate. Skipton to Colne was to have remained open, including local services. Interestingly, Map No 1 - Density of Passenger Traffic - shows the Skipton to Colne line as being busier than the section between Rose Grove and Colne, 10,000 to 50,000 passengers per week and 5,000 to 10,000 passengers respectively.

The Skipton to Colne line, however, did not appear on the map of Barbara Castle's 'Basic Railway' and was put through the closure process with undue haste, closing early in 1970. Whether this was a mistake or not has been the subject of several threads!

The Preston Power re-signalling was designed in the late 1960s and work in the East Lancashire area started in 1970. Although Rose Grove yard failed to live up to Beeching's expectations, through freight traffic continued to be healthy over Copy Pit and the Calder Valley towards Victoria, which (presumably) is why Copy Pit was fully resignalled and remained double track. It was only later in the 1970s, when the coal traffic between Lancashire and Yorkshire dwindled, that freight over Copy Pit declined.