Early History (2)
In spite of the problems engendered by the Great War, the L&Y had, by 1920, reached these
heights:
- It was fifth in the country for numbers of locomotives with 1650, 81% were less than 30 years old having
been built at Horwich after 1889;
- There were 291 passenger stations on 601 route miles of track (including joint stations) controlled
by 733 signal boxes and ground frames (including joint lines where the L&Y was the operator of the
infrastructure), nearly a quarter of the route miles were on gradients steeper than 1 in 100 which
created some operational difficulties;
- Around 37,000 people worked for the company, (1 person for every 30 yds of route mile!);
- It was a pioneer of inter-urban electrification (1 in 6 of all passenger traffic miles were electric
train), train control (a central office recorded the movement of all merchandise trains) staff
development (Instruction Vans and the Signalling School), locomotive testing (a Dynamometer Car),
using road motors (over 250 vehicles) and power signalling (installations at Bolton and Southport);
- It had the largest shipping fleet of any railway, 28 vessels in two fleets - Irish Sea and North Sea
and five more jointly owned with the LNWR;
- It was probably the most intensively worked of all the pre-Group railways with 256,000 passenger journeys and 900 goods trains (excluding mineral trains) per weekday on average.
Although a long way from London, the L&Y was no small fry among the railways, it was a greatly
respected concern; earnings were £12,263 per year per route mile or £3 PROFIT per DAY for
each of the 2,261 track miles, probably the greatest return in the country. In its final days it was
capitalised at £72 million pounds or £2.3 billion at today’s prices. Moreover it was an integral part
of the local community as well as being a great example of the northern business acumen which
had controlled the Industrial Revolution.
The original Rose Grove station in Burnley which was totally rebuilt at the
end of the 19th century.
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