The ABPR for 7/16/02 had several photos of the Waterfoot tunnels in the UK. Long abandoned and ghostlike, some appeared bricked up, some not. What railway was this, and where in the UK was it? When was the line abandoned?

http://abpr2.railfan.net/abpr.cgi?dir=july02/07-16-02&m=t
ryarger@rypn.org

> The ABPR for 7/16/02 had several photos of
> the Waterfoot tunnels in the UK. Long
> abandoned and ghostlike, some appeared
> bricked up, some not. What railway was this,
> and where in the UK was it? When was the
> line abandoned?

These tunnels are part of the former East Lancashire Railway/Lancashire & Yorkshire Rossendale branch line from Manchester and Bury to Bacup--a line which dates as far back as the late 1840s. Later on the Bury-Ramsbottom-Rawtenstall line was abandoned by BR (passengers 1972, freight 1980) and later still taken over by the East Lancashire Railway Preservation Society in the 1980s and reopened in 1991. The ex-tunnels are just to the east of Rawtenstall on the lifted line to Bacup (which was the terminus for two separate L&Y lines, if my British atlases are to be believed, with the trains running out and back through the Y-shaped terminus). ELR (perhaps wisely) has no public plans to extend over this former section.

Extra-Credit History of ELR
lner4472@bcpl.net