by Joe Brown

Have you ever wanted to know the track plan of an L&YR location in Lancashire? Well look no further - they are all here in this remarkable new book. For although the book is called Liverpool & Manchester Railway Atlas, it actually covers most of the old county of Lancashire and beyond in extensive detail and not only includes all the railways which were in the area, but also all the street tramways in the towns and cities and all the colliery and other industrial railway systems.

The atlas takes as its starting point the railway system in the north west which existed just before the Grouping in 1923 and therefore, unfortunately, the former L&YR routes are shown in red along with the rest of what was then the LNWR. However the company which built each line and the opening date is shown which means it is easy to pick out the former L&YR lines.

Each map shows the current railway system in a bold colour, but all the previous track layouts are shown more faintly. Therefore every station, goods yard, junction and engine shed can be seen in detail. In addition there are separate enlarged maps for major centres and these can be for other dates.

The book is an astonishing achievement and it contains an enormous amount of information from opening and closing dates (where known) to potted histories of railway and tramway companies. It covers the area from Fleetwood in the north west to Chester in the south west and from Colne in the north east to Buxton in the south east. Enlarged double-page maps cover Liverpool in 1927 and Manchester and Salford in 1922.

 Highly recommended.

• 186 pages of maps plus 56 page index
• Published by Crecy Publishing
  
• ISBN: 978-0-86093-687-9
• Price includes UK postage
• For EU and international postage add a donation as indicated on the Book Shop page