Steaming Along: The North West

The North West

We start at the West Lancashire Light Railway at Becconsall, Hesketh Bank. A short but delightful narrow gauge line. Alongside the home fleet of Irish Mail, Kerr Stuart Joffre 2405, O&K Montalban and Utrillas, we see a host of visiting locomotives including modern Quarry Hunslets Statfold and Jack Lane, Huswell Clarke Alpha and Bronllwyd.

Moving to the Ribble Steam Railway at Preston, formerly the Steamport Museum located in Southport (a town in which we visit later), the railway opened in September 2005 and runs through the Preston Docklands. We see a feast of industrial locomotives in action including Agecroft Number 2, Pecketts May & Teddy, Sentinel 8024/1929 ‘Gasbag’, Hawthorn Leslie No. 21 Linda, Baagnall Courageous and Princess (visiting from the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway), Grant Ritchie 272, MSC 32 Gothenburg and John Howe. The line is home to the Furness Railway Trust and we see Furness 20 in action on the line. The line passes over a swing bridge, shared with road traffic, and is still used for freight trains with Bitumen trains arriving three times a week.

Next we move to the Museum of Science & Industry at Liverpool Road, Manchester. The site of the original terminus of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, the museum is home to a replica of L&M 2-2-2 Planet locomotive. The line has a short demonstration line, made shorter in recent years since the Ordsall Chord has been built. In action on the demonstration line alongside Planet we see LSWR Beattie Well Tank 30587 and L&Y 957.

Next we have a look at the Lancashire Mining Museum at Astley Green Colliery, before moving to miniature lines, first to the Dragon Miniature Railway then to the Lakeside Miniature Railway in Southport. Next we move to Chester to the Grosvenor Park Miniature Railway and finally to Blackpool Zoo. We then stick in Blackpool for a look at the Blackpool Tramway.

One line not covered is the East Lancashire Railway, as that has been covered in an earlier Steaming Along:    / @preservedrailway  

Steaming Along
With my move to a 4K camera in 2018, this seemed like the perfect opportunity for a series of compilation videos with my archived pre 4K material. Steaming Along is a series of compilation videos looking at the key locations and locomotives on some of Britain's best preserved railways.
This is the final episodeof series 2 of Steaming Along, continuing a look at my footage before I moved 4K. This series has had episodes focused on Main Line Steam, Capital Steam, the Lake District, the North East, the South and the Great Little Trains of Wales.

Series 2:
The Midlands -    • Steaming Along: The Midlands  
South West - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0md9m...
Great Little Trains of Wales -    • Steaming Along: The Great Little Trains of...  
South East England -    • Steaming Along: South East  
North East - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q5zw...
Lake District - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK83M...
Capital Steam -    • Steaming Along: Capital Steam  
Main Line Steam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3bJq...

www.preservedrailway.co.uk
(C) Lee Andrew Davies 2020