The Bacup Branch

IT'S over 62 years ago that passenger trains were withdrawn on the line from Rochdale to Bacup, via the Whitworth Valley.
When it was built in the 19th century, the line was the highest on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's network.

The Rochdale-Facit section of the Bacup branch opened for goods in October 1870 and to passengers a month later.
The extension to Bacup followed in November 1881.
At the time it was a considerable engineering feat as the line had unrelenting gradients, unsympathetic subsoil, high annual rainfall, bad winters, the difficult crossing of Healey Dell and two short tunnels.

It closed to passengers on 16 June 1947, ostensibly as a 'temporary measure' because of a shortage of coal, but no more passengers trains ran again.
Official and permanent closure of the Rochdale to Bacup branch began in December, 1949.
Up to 1952 only light engines ran between Bacup shed and Rochdale but then the line was closed betwen Facit and Bacup, leaving a service of two goods trains a day from Rochdale to Facit yard and one or two trains a day to Shawclough and Healey.
The line remained open to goods until the mid 1960s - at least as far as Facit - but by the end of 1967 the line no longer exists.

Bacup to Ramsbottom will added at a later date.

I cannot take all the credit for the route as Peter Holton started this and what he gave me was a good foundation to build on. My late Dad a Bacup man and it in his memory I wish finish it.

Regards


John