The Buffer Stops Here

With the ongoing work of electrification of the main rail line from Preston to Blackpool by Network Rail, many items of railway equipment were due to be scrapped.

Many of theses items were of obvious interest to the numerous heritage railways operating all over the country on very low budgets.

Network Rail was therefore approached and these items were put up for auction, with any heritage railway that was interested in saving any of the equipment asked to bid for it.

The PWRS, whose aim is to one day re-open the line from Poulton to Fleetwood, decided to try and save one of these items for posterity and install it on the line we are currently clearing.

We chose one of the buffer stops from platform 8 at Blackpool North Station and our bid was successful.

The buffer stop was collected from Blackpool by A E Engineering Ltd of Fleetwood and with the kind permission of Peter Naylor of N.P.L. Estates Ltd, was transported to our depot at N.P.L. Hillhouse industrial site at Thornton where it will be refurbished by a team of our volunteers ready to install on the line.

Without the help of N.P.L. Estates Ltd and A E Engineering Ltd this piece of railway history would have been lost forever.