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The Lancashire Fusillier on the Main Line

The train in the picture is the Cotton Mill Express hauled by Loco No 45407 "The Lancashire Fusilier Link
It is about to enter the Standedge Tunnel at Diggle which is on the main Manchester to Huddersfield railway line which opened in 1848.
SE0008 : Standedge Railway Tunnel

Threading together many of Lancashire and Yorkshire’s former cotton and textile mills on a breathtaking 100-mile circular route, the ‘Cotton Mill Express’ embraces some of the most wild and rugged hill country the Pennines has to offer.
The journey heads due east out of Manchester and via Stalybridge into the Pennines for the tough slog up to Diggle, and via the long Standedge Tunnel, down into Huddersfield.
From Huddersfield it then heads through the glorious Calder Valley, passing former textile towns such as Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden, en route to Burnley and Blackburn, then back to Manchester.

Locomotive no. 45407 was built by the Armstrong Whitworth Company Spotswood, Newcastle in 1937 for the L.M.S Railway, its work number being 1462. It was 1 of 226 engines, which was the largest order ever placed with a private builder by a British Railway Company the order being worth 2.7 million Pounds.

45407 is a busy mainline locomotive, available for all types of charter work around the country. She is a regular performer on the Settle and Carlisle route and In Fort William on West Coast Railways "Jacobite Express" steam services between Fort William and Mallaig.

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