HEYWOOD - A PROTOTYPE WITH POTENTIAL

Freight-only branch lines often make interesting prototypes on which to base a model railway, especially if, as at Heywood in Lancashire, they served a wagon works, thus affording the opportunity to run a very wide selection of rolling stock.

Th e railway first arrived at Heywood in April 1841, when the Manchester & Leeds Railway opened a 1¼-mile-long single-track branch line from Castleton. In May 1848, the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, successors to the Manchester &