RAILWAYS which once blazed a trail through the Leigh area feature strongly in a new book by transport expert and author Gordon Suggitt.

Lost Railways of Merseyside and Greater Manchester is a well researched paperback which contains modern views of once familiar trackside scenes such as the 60s shot of a steam locomotive heading for Manchester through the Chester Road cutting at Tyldesley.

Nowadays that spot is a pleasant walkway although earmarked to be a section of the planned Leigh-Manchester Guided Busway.

The pages also contain a lot of interesting facts - did you know Leigh is the biggest town in England not to have a rail service?

Photographs of train stations, locomotives and rolling stock en route through Journal-land remind readers of the place this area has in British transport history. The Atherleigh by-pass was once the Bolton-Kenyon railway which passed through Leigh.

Long-gone scenes include shots of Pennington railway station and a trackside view at the station at the bottom of Wareing Street in Tyldesley.

Information relates to the mineral lines serving a coal mining industry which, along with cotton and textiles, dominated working life in the Leigh district.

Author Gordon Suggitt , a retired geography teacher who wrote the best-seller Lost Railways of Lancashire , reasons how it affected the railway service and how it has now become a part of our surroundings even if Leigh itself is no longer on track.

But Leigh itself used to be criss-crossed by a network of lines, traces of which can be seen in the leftover embankments, bridges and archways.

The book itself is a must-read for rail enthusiasts and anyone interested in the community's evolution.

It costs £9.95 and is published by Countryside Books, 3 Catherine Road, Newbury, Berkshire.