Our Accessibility Statement

Home Plan Your Day Out Our Accessibility Statement

At the East Lancashire Railway, we welcome visitors of all abilities. We’ll do whatever we can to make your visit as comfortable and accessible as possible.

If you have any questions or concerns ahead of your journey, or would like some help planning your visit, please do not hesitate to get in touch online or call us on 0333 320 2830.

Our Trains

We operate a fleet of mainly pre-1960’s railway carriages and most of our standard service trains have space available for visitors with mobility impairments including some wheelchair spaces.

We are currently introducing new accessible coaches with ramps and wider doors. As space is inevitably limited, we recommend that wheelchair users contact us in advance so we can make suitable arrangements. This will help us to make your visit a more pleasurable one.

A step and wheelchair ramp are carried on all standard service trains and these are available to help you to access or leave the trains. Just ask a member of staff for assistance and they’ll be happy to help.

Visit the TFGM for full ticket details

Location Accessibility

Wheelchairs

Wheelchair users please note: our ramps have a weight limit of 250kg. They will take an ordinary wheelchair, plus user and pusher or a small battery operated chair. However, they are not suitable for larger motorized scooters or buggies.

Toilets

There are toilets on most of our standard service trains. Owing to their small dimensions, we regret that these toilets cannot accommodate wheelchairs. Some services operated by diesel multiple units (DMU’s) may not have on-board toilets.

There are accessible toilets at Bury and Rawtenstall stations.

Assistance Dogs

We welcome assistance and guide dogs in all our carriages and at the Bury Transport Museum.

Dining Train

Unfortunately, our Guards Van, Dining Cars and 1950s coaches are unable to accommodate a wheelchair. Any visitors wishing to dine aboard will need to board these coaches via the steps and get to their seat without a wheelchair.

We can accommodate guide dogs, but please let us know when booking.

Mobile Phone Coverage

There is generally good mobile phone coverage over all parts of the line, however there are three tunnels where your signal may easily be lost.

Refreshments

Light refreshments are available on most of our trains from our on-board buffets.

Buffet facilities are available at Bury Bolton Street on most operating days. Facilities at other staffed stations are open on an occasional basis – please check for details.

Additionally, we have pub facilities at Bury and Rawtenstall.

Station Facilities

Website accessibility

Improving website visibility

If you are using Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Netscape or Opera you can increase or decrease the font size by pressing the + (plus) or – (minus) keys on the top of the keyboard whilst holding down the Ctrl key (Cmd key for Mac users).

Alternatively, if you have a mouse with a wheel, you can increase and decrease the size of your fonts in your browser by moving the mouse wheel up or down whilst holding down the Ctrl key (Cmd key Mac).

All browsers also support pressing the Ctrl key (Cmd key Mac) and 0 (zero) at the same time to reset the font back to the default font.

Navigation

A hidden menu at the beginning of each page allows screen reader users to skip navigation and jump to the main content (access key S).

A link also provides easy access to this, our website accessibility information page (access key 0).

Colours

To ensure that our site is clear and easy to read, we have chosen font and background colours which contrast significantly.

If you wish to override the site’s colours, you can change your browser settings to suit your own requirements.

Stylesheets

Cascading style sheets are used for all visual layout. If your browser does not support stylesheets, the content of each page will still be readable and clearly structured.

Please refer to the Help section of your browser if you wish to apply your own stylesheet.

Forms

To ensure easy navigation, all form fields follow a logical tab sequence and are clearly labelled to make the process of filling them in as easy as possible.

Links

All text links should clearly identify where they go. Links which open in a new window should be labelled “opens new window”. If you do not have JavaScript enabled, the information will be displayed in the same window – use the back button on your browser to return to this website.

Making your computer work for you

There are a number of other ways in which you can change your browser, computer, keyboard and mouse settings to make the web more accessible for you.

The AbilityNet website has helpful advice on customising your computer.

The BBC site My Web My Way has information on how to optimise your web experience on a wide variety of platforms. Start by clicking on the operating system of your computer.

Download our accessibility statement

If you need to download this accessibility statement to read offline, please click here.

Download Accessibility Statement