East Lancs Railway Heywood

After two extensions The East Lancs Railway is 12.5 miles of working track, and will, with stops included, easily make a full afternoon. The railway is partly notable because most of it’s stations are either intact or restored. Also, the East Lancs Railway was inner‐city, not a rural track. Alongside steam, the railway runs a notable collection of diesel engines and carriages. Heywood station is the natural start of the line, and modest. But looks like a model train set, so realistic you could step into it, because you can. This is how stream trains used to be, not a postcard memory or film‐directed kitsch—the communication, the escape. Mind you, if you go to the end of the line—Ramsbottom and Rawthenstall—you’ll get scenery. There’s no need to recommend this—if you like the idea, you’ll go. The service is reliable and at least three trains a day when running so, while not a conventional service, the East Lancs Railway is sometimes used like a regular network.