{"id":1779,"date":"2025-10-15T08:31:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T08:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/?p=1779"},"modified":"2025-10-15T09:24:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T09:24:56","slug":"northern-salvo-328","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/northern-salvo-328","title":{"rendered":"Northern Salvo 328"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Northern Autumn Salvo<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Incorporating \u00a0Weekly Notices, Sectional Appendices, Salvo-over-Sands and Northern Weekly Salvo <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Published at Station House, Kents Bank, Lancashire-North-of-the-Sands, LA11 7BB <\/strong>email: paul.salveson@myphone.coop<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

No. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 328\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 October\/November 2025\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Salveson\u2019s half-nakedly political digest of railways, tripe and secessionist nonsense from Up North<\/p>\n

Rocketing along<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Welcome to the Autumn \u2018Salvo\u2019 \u2013 gone are the days when I used to bring out weekly! But I hope there\u2019s plenty of interest without overloading you.<\/p>\n

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Members of the ‘Rocket All Aboard’ team at our stall at the Science and Industry Museum recently<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As mentioned in the last Salvo I\u2019m fully settled in Kents Bank, overlooking Morecambe Bay with some splendid views (actually saw \u2018Duke of Gloucester\u2019 steaming past Hest Bank before it came a cropper!). I\u2019ve still got a foothold in Bolton though, at the Horwich sub-shed, which is currently a construction site for HS4, also known as Salvo\u2019s Garden Railway. Unlike larger versions, it is on time and to budget. More on HS2 later in this issue.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason I\u2019m a bit busy at present is work around \u2019Rocket All Aboard\u2019, celebrating the 200th<\/sup> anniversary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, as well as Bolton and Leigh 200, Station Library and getting back into writing. My latest collection of short stories \u2013 \u2018The Loco Vanishes \u2013 Northern Rail Mysteries\u2019<\/em> is now out (again, see later). It\u2019s a big job getting it into shops, reviewed and generally promoted.<\/p>\n

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approaching Chorley if you want to know, October 1966<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Library is doing very well with a steady flow of visitors from far and near and some very welcome donations of books and model railway equipment. This gives us a very useful income which goes back into supporting the Library. Come and visit! We\u2019re open Friday to Monday 11.00 to 16.00 (other times by arrangement).<\/p>\n

I’m avoiding any political comment in this issue, you’re probably glad to know. I find it difficult to make sense of what is happening, both here in the UK and abroad. On top of that, I’m sick of the nastiness that has become a characteristic of all sides of the political spectrum. At least we’ve got something resembling peace in Gaza, hopefully.<\/p>\n

Fingers in many pies<\/strong><\/h5>\n

It was a pleasure to go along to a talk on food and trains, at South-East Lancashire Community Rail Partnership\u2019s Community Room on Bolton station. Newly-appointed Community Rail officer Emily Oldfield gave a fascinating talk on the links between traditional food and railways, which we\u2019re planning to repeat at Kents Bank on Saturday December 13th<\/sup>. The connection between food and community rail is vast and varied \u2013 and lots of interesting work has already been done. Community-run cafes on<\/p>\n

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Gradely Lancashire food<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

stations are fairly common and in some places food is grown in vegetable patches at stations (e.g. the \u2018incredible edible\u2019 movement started at Todmorden). The Settle-Carlisle Line has a trolley service which offers local food and some train operators have promoted local delicacies, including beers. I\u2019m sure there\u2019s scope for doing a lot more.<\/p>\n

The Loco Vanishes<\/strong><\/h5>\n

My collection of short stories with an ever-so-slightly supernatural twist is now available, with official publication date October 31st. The Loco Vanishes \u2013 Northern Rail Mysteries<\/em> is published by Kents Bank Station Library price \u00a39.95, but you can get an advance copy for \u00a38 post and packing if you order before Halloween (October 31 as any self-respecting spook knows). It includes a very kind foreword by Mick Whelan, general secretary of ASLEF, as well as endorsements by Phil James of Network Rail and the acclaimed railway novelist Andrew Martin. Mick Whelan said: \u201c<\/em>Paul\u2019s knowledge of and love for the railway shines through both in the construction of the stories and also by introducing the reader to a world of which they would normally be unaware<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phil James, Managing Director of Network Rail\u2019s North-West route said: \u201cPaul\u2019s stories capture the spirit of railway life in a way that\u2019s both deeply personal and universally relatable. As someone who\u2019s spent a career in rail, I see in these tales the humour, grit, and humanity that define our industry. From the signalbox to the supernatural, this book is a celebration of the people and places that make the railway\u2014and the North\u2014so special<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are ten stories in all, mostly set in the Bolton, Blackburn and North Lancashire area, including Kents Bank. \u2018The Crossing Keeper\u2019s Cat\u2019 is set in and around Oxenholme. Many of the stories are based on tales I picked up when I worked on the railways, including the title story, based on an event which happened at Plodder Lane loco shed, Farnworth, probably in the late 1940s. \u2018The Boggart of Kitson Wood Tunnel\u2019 is also based on a true story from the 1960s.<\/p>\n

The book is kindly sponsored by ASLEF and Furness Line Action Group. Details on the Station Library website: www.stationlibrary.org.uk<\/a> or email me your email address and I\u2019ll send you further details. One of the stories \u2013 \u2018The Crossing Keeper\u2019s Cat\u2019 \u00a0\u2013 is reproduced below. Timely, as it features the horrendous crash at Harrow and Wealdstone on October 8th<\/sup> 1952:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/stationlibrary.org.uk\/the-crossing-keepers-cat\/<\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead of High-Speed Rail<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Readers will be aware of my long-standing antipathy to HS2. It was an ill-conceived project from the start, of little benefit to the North. It only got worse with cost-over-runs and delays on a colossal scale. These appear to be continuing, the whole thing is a complete mess. Attention is now shifting towards \u2018up North\u2019 with Liverpool and Greater Manchester mayors pushing for \u2018Northern Powerhouse Rail\u2019 which involves a new route from Liverpool to Manchester, an underground station at Piccadilly with the route continuing east towards Bradford and Leeds. Whilst I\u2019m a bit more sympathetic towards this than HS2, I\u2019ve always had worries about the project. These concerns are articulated in a report by the right-leaning Policy Exchange which has been commissioned by Reform to produce a report called Instead of High-Speed Rail. It\u2019s written by former Tory Government advisor Andrew Gilligan and includes a foreword by Reform\u2019s vice-chair Richard Tice. At this stage some readers will be asking have I gone completely bonkers, with a lurch to the right? Surely anything even vaguely linked to the Faragist lot must be the work of the devil? Well, I think it pays to have an open-mind. The report is well-argued and basically says a lot of what I\u2019ve been saying about HS2 in The Salvo<\/em> for the last ten years.<\/p>\n

The report doesn\u2019t say much new about HS2, and my own personal view is that now the project is so far advanced it really has to continue to Crewe. The suggestions made in the report to make some costly upgrades to the existing West Coast Main Line after HS2 joins it north of Birmingham don\u2019t really stack up.<\/p>\n

Where the report gets interesting is its critique of Northern Powerhouse Rail. This project has had a very easy ride in terms of Northern opinion \u2013 or at least that part which has access to the media \u2013 e.g. politicians, business and the like. Yet how much support it really has is debatable. As Tice says in his foreword to the report, \u201c<\/em>Outside a bubble of politicians, journalists and construction industry lobbyists, also exposed by this report, the voters of the North do not want, and never have wanted, a handful of high-speed rail lines, serving a handful of big cities, at fares only business people on expenses can afford. They want the money to be spent on the often failing railways (and roads) that they actually use<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed new route from Liverpool to Manchester uses some existing alignment and some new formation taking it via Manchester Airport into central Manchester. There would be a station serving outer Liverpool, a low-level station for Warrington Bank Quay and a further stop at Manchester Airport (or near to it). As the report points out, the journey will take longer than the existing Chat Moss route! It\u2019s hard to make a case for the new route free-ing up capacity as the two routes from Manchester to Liverpool both have capacity for more, and longer, trains. An interchange at Warrington wouldn\u2019t do much either \u2013 why change to a train going north or south when you can direct trains in both direction from Manchester and Liverpool? Or am I missing summat?<\/p>\n

More searching questions should be asked about the proposed new Trans-Pennine route. Currently Network Rail is investing heavily in the Trans-Pennine Upgrade (TRU) which will bring long-term resilience to the busy route. The route must be electrified throughout and further capacity improvements made to accommodate freight and local passenger services. A new route would, it\u2019s true, bring useful capacity improvements for the long-term, but at an astronomic cost (the report suggests \u00a330 billion). It would be immensely difficult, and disruptive, to build.<\/p>\n

So what is the alternative? There are several options which should be looked at. The report makes some interesting suggestions which need further scrutiny. Abandon the chimera of high-speed rail, it argues, and put the money saved into improvements to the existing network. Agreed. The solutions need looking at and the biggest challenge that has to be faced is the central Manchester conundrum. The highly-congested corridor between Piccadilly, Oxford Road and Deansgate is carrying a level of traffic it was never built for; even with signaling improvements it will always be a massive headache for operators.<\/p>\n

The report suggests a new \u2018Elizabeth Line of the North\u2019 tunneling under central Manchester providing connections to all parts of the network. It has echoes of the 1970s \u2018Picc-Vic\u2019 project which would have provided a heavy-rail underground link across Manchester from Piccadilly via Albert Square to Victoria, emerging onto the Bury Line near Queen\u2019s Road. It failed because the Government wasn\u2019t willing to sanction such major investment up North. In the end, we got Metrolink which did some of the things that Picc-Vic offered, but was a different beast \u2013 essentially for local traffic. Picc-Vic would have transformed local services but have been capable of linking up a more strategic network across the North \u2013 a sort of Manchester S-Bahn. We then got the Windsor Link which succeeded in joining up the north and south parts of the Manchester rail network and was immensely useful. Yet it was a sensible incremental solution that BR delivered. We\u2019re now at the stage where it can\u2019t cope with the demands being put on it, funneling trains onto the heavily congested route from Deansgate to Piccadilly.<\/p>\n

An alternative option is to quadruple the line between Piccadilly and Deansgate. That wouldn\u2019t be easy but might<\/em> be less costly than a tunnel. However, I think the underground option would potentially bring greater benefits \u2013 especially if there was a spur, more or less following the original Picc-Vic proposal to Victoria and on to the Rochdale and Stalybridge routes across the Pennines. These things are easily said but the cost would be substantial. On the other hand the economic benefits would be massive.<\/p>\n

The Policy Exchange report makes other recommendations which are less controversial \u2013 electrification of most of the Northern network, new rolling stock and capacity improvements. It makes very welcome suggestions for a fully-integrated public transport network across the North. The report deserves a good airing \u2013 just because you don\u2019t like the body who commissioned it, or even the person who wrote it, doesn\u2019t invalidate its arguments. But I suspect that will be the response from a lot of people up North, sadly.<\/p>\n

The report is here: <\/strong>https:\/\/policyexchange.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Instead-of-high-speed-rail_.pdf<\/p>\n

Kents Bank Station Library and Gallery News<\/strong><\/h5>\n

We\u2019ve had a busy time these last few weeks sorting out the library collection and preparing for a major influx of books donated by the widow of a senior railway manager.<\/p>\n

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our current exhibition<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The books we are in the process of acquiring (some have arrived already) include a large number of books about railways around the world, particularly Scandinavia but also South America and Australia. When they are all here, we reckon we will have one of the best collections of \u2018world railways\u2019 in the UK.<\/p>\n

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The pop-up station buffet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The gallery has a new exhibition of work by a superb local artists, Peter Monaghan. Quite varied in style and content, but I love his painting \u2018The Iron man\u2019 set in a foundry in the Midlands. His work will be on display until the end of the year and Peter will be giving a talk at our Christmas Fair on Saturday December 13th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve re-started our \u2018Platform Poets\u2019 sessions, showcasing work by local poets. The next one will be on Wednesday \u2013 please book in advance as we have limited space. The same goes for our monthly \u2018MIC\u2019 (Mutual Improvement Class) talks. The next one is on Wednesday November 19th<\/sup> and will be with Ian Henderson, talking about the \u2018Hengist\u2019 locomotive project \u2013 building a new \u2018Clan\u2019 light pacific. Starts at 14.00.<\/p>\n

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Hampsfell Hospice – the gallery has prints of this local scene by the late Tom Dearden, just \u00a35<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We are open (gallery and library) every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday \u2013 11.00 to 16.00. However, if you are in the area take pot luck and ring us on 07795 008691. We may be able to open up for you. See www.stationlibrary.org.uk<\/a>. Our \u2018pop-up\u2019 station buffet will also be open – visitors are invited to help themselves to complimentary teas and coffee \u2013 and sometimes biscuits!<\/p>\n

Salvo shorts<\/strong><\/h5>\n