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Fleetwood

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Fleetwood was the first planned town of the Victorian era, developed by Peter Hesketh, who changed his name to Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood to honour a relative, and then named the new town Fleetwood. Construction began in 1836, and this included a new railway. To the man's credit, his motivation seems to have been to provide a resort for the poor folk of Lancashire and Yorkshire. He nearly bankrupted himself in the process. The railway became part of - what was effectively - the west coast mainline. Trains from London arrived at Fleetwood, and then passengers proceeded by ferry towards Glasgow. However, this lasted only until 1848, at which point the entire journey could be made by rail. Nevertheless, the railway seems to have flourished, and a new station was built in 1883 (as well as branches to Blackpool and Lytham in 1846). It closed in 1966, and for a while passenger trains stopped at Wyre Dock instead, before that closed in 1970. The line closed to freight in 1999. There is a cam...
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Leigh

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Leigh is 11 miles west of Manchester. I have to be honest, it is not somewhere you would go to visit - but if you look closely you can see signs of its former importance in the industrial revolution. It boasts two canals, though as they meet here end on, to a casual glance they look like just one. A branch of the Leeds Liverpool Canal approaches from the west. This bridge seems to be the end of it. Not the original one here; this one was built to allow trams to cross the canal. Looking the other way, this preserved crane indicates where a branch of the Bridgewater Canal arrived. While the two canals are still in good order, the railways are all gone. There was quite a network in the area with lines heading east to west from Manchester to Liverpool, and other lines going south to north, and numerous other lines to serve mills and collieries. It is all gone now, some converted to roads, but one has been converted to a guided busway that heads towards Manchester. The start is where Leigh ...
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