A CLOSE LOOK AT BURNLEY

 Let's start with Burnley Central railway (NOT 'train') station. Here it is in September 1962, photographed by Ben Brooksbank.

Moving forward to 1982, several items of infrastructure are still in place.

By 2011, there's just a single line, served by the Colne service.

There's one more station, Burnley Barracks, still open today. It's seen here in 1962, again photographed by Ben Brooksbank.

As we saw in the last post, Burnley once had trams. Here are some in the middle of town.

It's 1926 and a single-deck tram passes under the Leeds & Liverpool Canal via the new aqueduct.

Burnley, Colne & Nelson, as the local municipal bus operator was known (normally abbreviated to 'BCN'), was one of the last operators to regularly use half-cab single-deck buses.

BCN also had some more modern Leyland vehicles, such as this Tiger Cub.

BCN, after 1974, became Burnley & Pende and a new livery was adopted.

However, the old tram colours were applied to bus No. 158.

The standard colours of Burnley & Pendle changed as time wore on.

But no-one expected Burnley & Pendle to buy Routemasters!

It's a long story, but Burnley & Pendle fell into the hands of the Blazefield Group and is now part of Transdev.

Ribble Motor Services was the other major operator in Burnley.

Two other council-owned bus companies ran into Burnley's bus station, West Yorkshire PTE and Rossendale Transport.

Over recent years, since deregulation, various independents have run services into Burnley. Most have now vanished. Here are examples from (top to bottom) Northern Blue, Pennine of Gargrave, Tyrer Bus, M&M Coaches, and Border Buses.

So much for the transport, it's now time for the pubs. Sadly, the Wheatsheaf is no longer a Moorhouse's establishment and seems to be shut.

Thankfully, the Coal Clough is well and truly in buisiness and has a rare beer. More info on Whatpub.

The Ministry of Ale, with its internal brewery, would appear to be a recent casualty.

I've left the best until last, the Bridge Bier Huis, a wonderful free house. Learn more here.

That's it for now. The next post will see us leaving town and heading up the valley.