The Heritage Trail follows the route of the original railway line that ran from St Helens to Ormskirk via Rainford Junction where it met the Liverpool, Bolton & Bury line. The trail starts where Crank railway station was situated and passes through the locations of Mill Lane, Rookery, Rainford Village and Rainford Junction railway stations. The railway line was opened in 1858 and continued to operate until the early 1960s when it succumbed to the infamous Beeching cuts that eliminated most of the lines that were no longer  economic to run. Rainford Linear Park is a 3-mile green corridor that stretches along the former railway line between Crank and Rainford Junction. The park has been transformed into a nature-filled footpath, interspersed with local history information boards. It was opened in […]

Below is a 1926 six inch to the mile Ordnance Survey map of Rainford that clearly shows the railway line on which the locations of the stations are marked.