History

It was In 1824 that a wealthy landowner, the High Sheriff of Lancashire and Member of Parliament, Sir Peter Hesketh inherited the Rossall Estate, a large amount of land covering the North Fylde area.

He had the vision of building a new port and town at the mouth of the River Wyre which he called Fleetwood, after the family name. He realised that he needed a good transport system to connect the town and so he formed the Preston & Wyre Railway company to build a railway line from the industrial town of Preston via Poulton.

Constructed by George and Robert Stephenson (and in part Joseph Locke), the line was officially opened on the 15th July 1840, having taken just four years to construct. It was the first railway to a seaside tourist resort in the world and helped the development of a thriving town and port.

London to Scotland

It also formed an important section of the first through route for passengers wanting to travel to Scotland from London. A fine hotel the "North Euston", which was named after the London terminal station and is still standing today, was built to cater for customers staying overnight whilst transferring from rail to sea for the voyage by steamship to Ardrossan and then onwards by train to Glasgow.

This was the only way to get to Scotland at the time, but unfortunately another company built a railway over the steep slopes of Shap Fell in the Lake District only six years later and this enabled passengers to avoid the rough sea journey and so Fleetwood lost this trade after a short time leaving the shareholders of the Preston & Wyre Railway extremely disappointed.

Tourists and Steamers

Stations were also built at Wyre Dock, Thornton-Cleveleys and Burn Naze. The railway, now part of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, still flourished as a destination for day trippers and holidaymakers and extensions were built in 1846 to Blackpool with a new line being connected at Poulton and also to Lytham, to cater for the large numbers of tourists flocking to the seaside, as they too developed as holiday destinations.

With the regrouping of the railways into four large companies in 1923, the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) had now taken over all of the services established by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, the Lancashire & North West Railway and the Midland Railway.

The town of Fleetwood however still grew and although some shipping to Scottish and Cumbrian ports had ceased, the LMS railway ran a twice daily Belfast service with four coal fired steamers operating on the route.

The railway also carried passengers to the port to travel by sea to Barrow for the Lake District and the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company also ran a daily service to Douglas.

Fishing and Freight

Fleetwood also became one of the largest and most successful fishing ports in the British Isles. Over a hundred fishing trawlers operated from the port and daily special trains took the fish directly to the large city fish markets.

Grain, iron ore, minerals, coal and timber were also transported by train through the port to many parts of the country.

Fleetwood however then slowly declined in the last part of the 20th century, gradually losing tourism and the passenger boats from the port. The fishing industry also collapsed with the loss of trawlers in the Fish Docks and many other associated businesses in the town closed down.

Slow Demise

The railway lines from Preston to the Fylde coast are still busy today with regular services serving Blackpool North and South (via Lytham).

Sadly, Fleetwood Station was closed in 1966 and the railway line from Poulton was then terminated at Wyre Dock Station until, in 1970, that was also closed after the last passenger services ceased.

Trains carried coal to Fleetwood Power Station until 1982 when it closed down and was later demolished. The railway line was then terminated at Burn Naze, where trains still ran from the Imperial Chemicals Industry (ICI) site carrying tankers to Barry Docks in South Wales until 1999 when ICI closed down.

The railway line to Poulton then became out of use, was abandoned and became derelict and overgrown.

PWRS

The Poulton & Wyre Railway Society (PWRS) was formed by a dedicated group of railway enthusiasts in April 2006 (see about us) with a view to supporting and bringing political pressure to re-open the disused railway line.

Much of the now single track railway remains intact between Poulton-le-Fylde and Jameson Road which is approximately 2.5 kilometres to the south of Fleetwood town centre, with the exception of a small length behind the Holiday Park at Fleetwood Road.

To the North of Jameson Road, the track bed has been lost completely, mainly by an extension of the A585 built in the 1990s, as well as a succession of other developments, but it could be possible to resurrect a route to a terminal at Herring Arm Road.

Although the physical track connection at Poulton Junction was removed when the line from Preston to Blackpool was electrified in 2018, allowance was made for its reconnection, if required in the future.