Here in our pictures we can see a proud Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway locomotive crossing Colne viaduct when the age of steam ruled the rails.

Now to the dreaded public notice. This was posted at all local stations on Tuesday, December 9th, 1969.

The main catalyst for this devastating news was the appointment on Thursday, June 1st, 1961, of 47-year-old Dr Richard Beeching, the successor to Sir Brian Robertson as British Transport Commission Chairman.

There is little doubt Dr Beeching's remit from the then transport Minister Ernie Marples was to reduce, at whatever the cost, the enormous staff levels which stood at over 525,000 at the time of his appointment.

Dr Beeching's predecessor, Sir Brian Robertson, was on a yearly salary of £10,000. This was eclipsed by the doctor's annual pay, which was an unprecedented £25,000, a sum which equates to almost a million pounds today! The pompous and somewhat magisterial doctor was not popular with his employees.

I was working as a signalman during the summer of 1963 and his nickname by which all British Railways staff called him I could positively not reveal in a family newspaper!

Through the savage staff reduction programme, I lost my job with British Railways in October, 1963 and, due to the axe-wielding doctor, the total by 1964 was down from 525,000 to 398,500.

Much of this and what was to follow was due to Dr Beeching's report published by HMSO on Monday, March 25th, 1963, the now infamous "The Re-shaping of British Railways".

Thousands of long-established passenger stations (over 80% had been running since the reign of Queen Victoria) were lost, and from 6,720 stations in 1948 by the time of Colne's tragic demise and station closure in 1972 just 2,418 remained. The doctor resigned, reneging on his five-year contract in May, 1964. The damage was done and the once mighty railway empire was gone. Also, the now grinning doctor was rewarded, becoming Baron Beeching and was to be forever known as the man who changed the face of British railways.

On Sunday, February 1st, 1970, the last train ran on the Colne to Skipton line. The chairman was Sir Henry Johnson, who on taking over in 1968 imposed a ban on all main line steam locomotives.

By the end of 1970, the track had been taken up all along the Colne to Skipton line. I managed to get two lengths of rail - one from the Colne station around 15in long and a 3ft long piece (can only be lifted by two people) from under the Barrowford Road bridge by "Titty-bottle Lane". Can the Colne to Skipton line ever have trains running along this scenic and indeed, homefelt route ever again? The odds are, after 40 years, overwhelmingly stacked against - the 11.7 mile track has, in those four decades, had around 3.5 miles built and developed on, the sheer logistics of building a new bridge over the canal at Foulridge or the complete dialectics of putting into place a level crossing at Earby, all these would create spending on a gargantuan scale.

I would dearly love to travel on the splendid Colne to Skipton line again. My memories of steam train journeys along this sublime stretch will never fade, however much an optimist I'd like to be for it to happen.

My dear friend Eric Greenwood and the legendary Groucho Marx summed the whole scenario up perfectly with the comment: "A Likely Story"!