East Lancashire Railway in the 1990s

By Doug Birmingham (softback, Amberley Publishing, 96pp, £15.99, ISBN 978 1 4456 8840 4).

THE East Lancashire Railway is one of the heritage sector's newest ‘premier league' lines, having started operation in July 1987, five years after the formal closure of the line by BR following the cessation of coal trains in the 1980s.

Inheriting a track rather than having to relay one, the ELR got off to a flying start and the author, an accomplished linesider, was on hand from 1989 to capture the action from the early days, when the revivalists – like their counterparts elsewhere – started off by using small industrial locomotives, quickly graduating to using BR steam and diesel types... and have never looked back. BIRTH OF A PREMIER LINE