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Rosegrove Lane, BURNLEY, BB12 6EU

Rose Grove station adjoins the 1970s-built M65 motorway which is just at the right-hand end of the road bridge here. In Germany, Holland or France, it would have been second-nature to provide a 'park and ride', or at least a 'kiss 'n' ride' here, but this kind of thinking did not enter the heads of the faceless bean-counters who were in charge of transport planning at the time. Here a local train for Blackpool picks up a handful of passengers.

There was a time when Rose Grove was an important station with buildings such as booking office, waiting rooms, toilets, etc. on the platform. There was even an engine shed nearby. Now there is a vast expanse of platform with a totally inadequate bus shelter. Here a fast diesel train destined for Leeds passes the station disdainfully.

Opened 1848 by the East Lancashire Railway on its Blackburn to Burnley line, view east from Rosegrove Lane bridge. Taken from roughly the same position as Ben Brooksbank's 1951 photograph Image]- but you'd do well to see anything that appeared in both, other than the platform!

View eastward, towards Burnley, Colne, Todmorden etc.: ex-L&Y (East Lancs. section). The train, no doubt from Yorkshire via Todmorden, is headed by ex-WD Austerity' 2-8-0 No. 90283. This engine was built as WD 7407 (later 77407) in 12/43, worked from Colwick (one of 450 loaned to the Railways - 350 to the LNER) before being sent over to the Continent in 12/44: it returned to England in 7/46, stored at Richborough until put to work on the GWR at Llanelly in 5/47; under BR it was numbered 90283 and allocated to the LMR at Rose Grove in 3/49 and survived untl 10/65.