EXACTLY 130 years ago today an idea born after a train journey reached its destination in Railway Road Blackburn.

The first printing of The Northern Daily Telegraph, now the Lancashire Telegraph, started a media tradion which has continued into the digital age after 13 decades of continuous publication.

This edition the paper shows that the dream of the paper's founder Thomas Purvis Ritzema, shocked to find he could not buy an evening paper in the county, is still on track.

The newspaper has changed its title, shape and size a few times in those 130 years and has had three different locations on the same town centre street, but remains just a few hundred yards from the railway station.

After taking his wife to Blackpool in the summer of 1886, Middlesbrough Newspaper executive Mr Ritzema decided that Lancashire was ripe for an evening newspaper of its own.

An already proven media visionary, in his native North-East, he first considered Preston as the base for his new venture, before deciding the fast-growing industrial town of Blackburn was the ideal headquarters for a publication serving the half million residents of Burnley, Accrington, Nelson, Darwen. Colne and the surrounding villages and nearby Rossendale Valley.

After purchasing two adjoining shops at 19 and 21 Railway Road, it took just 21days for the first halfpenny edition to appear.

After the premises were adapted, machinery procured, supplies like ink and paper purchased, 50 staff recruited, advertisers canvassed and all the other tiny organisational details sorted the paper was ready to roll on the presses.

The adverts may have gone from the front page in 1939, but the dream of 'TP', as he liked to be known, remains alive.

It was 'to promote the moral, political, social and intellectual elevation of the people' by providing up to date and accurate news about what was happening in their neighbourhoods, laced by a good dollop of entertainment.

Then, as now, the people of East Lancashire were hungry for news.

Local council elections were covered and Parliamentary debates were reported within hours of their happening, while a South American revolution and a house fire in Blackburn also made its six daily editions in its early days.

The adverts in the paper's early decades covered the first threepenny cigar in England, painless artificial teeth, the sale of 'mantles, jackets and Ulsters' for fashion concious readers and the chance to buy new-fangled telephones outright.

Sport was also important for the football-loving 'TP', who became a dedicated Blackburn Rovers fan, who oversaw 'stop press' announcements of the racing results before many readers realised the horses had passed the winning post.

The initial success and circulation of the paper 'surpassed' even its founder's expectations.

In 1887, the newsboys and staff celebrated hitting the 25,000 sales a day mark with 'a feast of coffee and buns'.

Ever-ingenious, the boss once had to hire a council road roller to power a belt to keep the presses running after his engine broke down.

Rivals like the 'Lancashire Daily Express' and 'Evening Star' came and went after just years or months and in 1894 grand new offices were built just down Railway Road (where Morrisons is now) compete with pigeon loft so news could literally be flown into the building by the quickest means possible.

Three years later the Sports 'Pink' hit the streets after the Saturday soccer matches and in 1904 an aeroplane delivered copies of the paper to fans in London after Rover's FA Cup victory.

A series of technological revolutions, which saw hand-set print replaced by 'hot metal' linotype machines at the turn of the century, have continued to this day with the latest computer systems now being used to compile the newspaper.

Pigeons have been replaced by email for carrying the news to HQ and reporters no longer summon horse-drawn cabs to race to incidents.

Mr Ritzema died in 1938, still at the helm of the newspaper which had a circulation that exceeded 75,000 copies daily.

In 1956 it became the North Evening Telegraph and seven years later the Lancashire Evening Telegraph using full colour for the first time.

In 1982 it crossed High Street to its present headquarters and in 1995 it became the first newspaper in Britain to launch a website on the internet, dropping the 'Evening' from its masthead and going to morning publication in 1996.

Last year the paper won the 'On Line Media' prize in the O2 North West Media Awards,

Still selling thousands of print copies, the paper is read by 89,423 people in all formats every day.

Lancashire Telegraph Editor Ian Savage said: “To be just the 12th person in charge of the Lancashire Telegraph as it celebrates its 130th birthday is a privilege.

“It is performing the same functions of informing and entertaining the people of East Lancashire today as it did in 1886.

“The paper is an integral part of the community, adapting to the digital age while retaining and building on its historic heritage and identity.”

At 130 years young, the Lancashire Telegraph is still on the journey its visionary founder started after a railway trip to the seaside in 1886 and is steaming ahead for new destinations and new achievements in the next 13 decades.