Rawtenstall to Bacup Line

v t e Railways in Rossendale
Legend
Bacup Stacksteads Britannia Waterfoot Shawforth Clough Fold Facit Whitworth to Rochdale to Accrington Rawtenstall Haslingden Ewood Bridge and Edenfield Helmshore Irwell Vale East Lancashire Railway Stubbins to Bury

The Rawtenstall to Bacup

in 1966, the last passenger train running on 5 December 1966 and the track being lifted in 1969.

As the Irwell valley is quite narrow the line had many engineering features in its 5-mile (8.0 km) length, including 14 crossings of the River Irwell alone, plus many over and underbridges, embankments and cuttings, and tunnels at Thrutch Gorge (The Glen) in Waterfoot. Most of the bridges have been demolished or infilled in the years since closure. A foot and cycle path now follows much of the route including the 1⁄8-mile (200 m) Newchurch No. 1 Tunnel and 1⁄4-mile (400 m) Newchurch No 2 Tunnel.

However, there are proposals to reopen the line as part of the Governments strategy to reopen old rail lines in the country which have been closed in the 1960s or later cuts under British Rail.^[1]

• Lost Railways of Lancashire by Gordon Suggitt (
  ISBN 1-85306-801-2
  )

External links

• British Railways in 1960, Ramsbottom (Stubbins Jn.) to Bacup