Most people tend to think you have to go back to the steam era for dramatic 'then and now' comparisons, but as Paul Shannon finds on a 'memory lane' trip to south Lancashire, scenes taken as recently as the 1980s now provide sobering pairings with the present. During the last 20 years, the British railfreight scene has undergone a massive upheaval. Wagonload freight operations have been severely cut back; many freight-only branches and through lines have been axed; small freight terminals have been closed; changes in the UK coal and steel industries have led to major losses; virtually the entire locomotive fleet has been replaced; and the last examples of vacuum-braked freight wagons have disappeared.
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