1/ (long read) Here’s today’s AMN (Antidote to News Misery) pix posting. I first visited the East Lancs Rly of today in 1982, as Assistant Editor of Steam World. My contact was ELRPS Chairman the late Harry Hatcher. He was affable, knowledgeable & always helped ensure I could

2/ get my head around the project’s aspirations/structure and its relationship with local authorities. I phoned Harry for monthly updates and he eventually invited me to visit, which I did. In those days, activities were limited to the Transport Museum at Castlecroft, where I was

3/ given a tour. To show why a main line connection with Heywood was not possible, Harry took me to the remains of Knowsley St station, where I saw the flat crossing where the ‘Bury electrics’ from Manchester Victoria crossed the singled Heywood-Rawtenstall line. I heard a train

4/ approaching and quickly snapped it on the crossing. Coal trains to Rawtenstall ceased in 1980 and the ELR line closed in 1982. Harry explained that back then HMRI had refused to permit the planned Metrolink conversion of the electric line, to cross a heavy rail heritage

5/ line on the level - and so the flat crossing could not continue. I later attended the ELR opening between Bury Bolton Street and Ramsbottom, via Summerseat, on July 25 1987 – and that was my last visit until after I started as editor of Steam Railway in March 1992. I heard

6/ that a ‘ski jump’ crossing of the Metrolink line was planned for the ELR at Knowsley St - so I had to go and take a look. We’ve seen the Bluebell excavate a cutting which had been filled with thousands of tons of rubbish to reach East Grinstead and also, more recently, the

7/ GCR’s new bridge over the MML so we are now accustomed to major civil engineering projects. But back in 1992 this was a startling project for a heritage railway to pursue. It was fraught with problems, not least (not shown) the very sharp curve south of Bolton Street, where

8/ the Heywood line used to cross, almost at 90 degrees. The really big headache for designers, however, were two overbridges a short distance apart. In the 'building site' picture I’m standing on one of those bridges and the other is visible just a few hundred

9/ yards away. The planned ELR ‘ski jump’ track had to emerge from beneath my feet, climb steeply to span Metrolink (in the cutting beyond the car park) and then descend equally steeply, to run beneath the second overbridge. “I’ll believe it when I see it!” I thought! I had

10/ snapped the ‘Bury electric’ on the crossing from a couple of metres this side of the bottom of the embankment, where that puddle is. All trace of Knowsley Street station had been obliterated.

11/ Skip forward again in time and I took the two later pictures in 1993 – one from ground level and one from the bridge shown in the older picture. The ground level shot highlights the steepness of the gradients, at 1 in 36 and 1 in 41.

12/ If you’d told me when I took the snap of the ‘Bury electric’ from the derelict Knowsley St platform in 1982 that nearly 40 years later, as a director of Loughborough Standard Locomotives Group, I would act as the owner’s caretaker on BR Class 2 2-6-0 No. 78018 as it

13/ hauled pax trains over the ‘ski jump’ during a 2019 visit, the prospect wd hv seemed like fantasy. Yet it happened. The ‘ski jump’ is fantastic testament to the determination of my fellow Lancastrians to allow nothing to stand in the way of their dreams. Long may that apply!