Rose Grove railway station is located in the western part of Burnley in Lancashire, England, 11 miles east of Blackburn railway station. The railway reached here in 1848 when the East Lancashire Railway Company opened a station The Caldervale Line from and the East Lancashire Line converge at Gannow Junction, just east of Rose Grove. The semi-fast Blackpool North to York service via Burnley Manchester Road does not call at Rose Grove, but the recently introduced Blackburn to via service does. Trains either take the now single track line to and on to terminate at Colne or travel over Copy Pit summit into West Yorkshireen route to Todmorden and hence to & Manchester. The station is a long island platform, with a disused bay platform at each end - one formerly used by local trains to Blackburn via Padiham and the other for services to Todmorden and Colne. It is unstaffed, but there are passenger information screens and a long-line PA system in place to provide train running information. Waiting shelters & a ticket vending machine are also available. Access to the platform is via a staircase from the road above, so there is currently no step-free access on offer for disabled users. Rose Grove was formerly the site of an engine shed, which was one of the last to house steam locomotives on British Railways. The site is now beneath the M65 motorway, which runs beside the railway at this point.
During the mid to late 1980s, Rose Grove was the starting point for an Inter City "Holidaymaker" Saturday service - in the 1989 timetable this ran as the 06:50 to via Preston and Birmingham New Street and the terminus for the 14:10 from Paignton return journey. The Blackpool North-York service initially called at Rose Grove after its reinstatement in 1984 to allow interchange with trains to and from Colne, Nelson, Brierfield and the two other Burnley stations at Burnley Barracks and Central. However this stop was removed from the service in the early 1990s with East Lancashire Line passengers wishing to travel eastwards towards Yorkshire having to change at Accrington instead. The station became unstaffed in the 1980s, following the demolition of the station buildings. The last remnants of the Great Harwood Loop towards have also disappeared, the line having been closed in 1993 with the end of oil traffic to the power station there.
Services
On weekdays and Sundays, there is an hourly service from Rose Grove to Colne and Preston. Sunday trains continue to. Following the re-opening of the Todmorden Curve to passengers in May 2015, trains on the Blackburn - Burnley - Manchester route now call at the station once per hour each way, enabling interchange facilities from Colne, Nelson, Brierfield and Burnley's Central and Barracks stations. This reinstates the link with Todmorden and the Calder Valley that was originally lost in November 1965.
