Thursday 25 June 2026 saw South East Lancashire CRP Community Rail Officer Emily Oldfield feature as guest speaker at the South Fylde Line CRP Annual General Meeting, giving a presentation on ‘Food, Drink and Rail Heritage – looking at Lancashire and beyond’.
The meeting, which was originally due to be held at County Hall in Preston, was moved online due to the severe heat forecast. Emily was pleased to have been invited to give the talk as she is currently researching Lancashire food heritage and how it has been transformed by the railways – a subject she is passionate about connecting with a wide audience.
Her presentation started by exploring foods commonly eaten in Lancashire before the advent of the railways, such as oatcakes and legumes like peas, the latter shaping the regional speciality of black/parched peas. She went on to detail how the railways then transformed eating habits, opening up new trade opportunities and allowing fertiliser and machinery to be transported quickly, used to make previously difficult land arable.
The railways also brought passengers, and this influenced seaside food culture in particular, as families from the industrial towns and cities could reach coastal destinations. The final part of Emily’s talk focused on this, considering food items such as pasties, Blackpool rock and fish and chips. She reflected on how train transportation also shaped the popularity of fish and chips inland, as prior to the railway, it would have been difficult to transport fish from the coast to the cities and keep it fresh. Emily mentioned dedicated ‘fish trains’ which ran from northern coastal towns to the big cities.
The talk was well-received, with insightful comments and questions from the audience and Emily looks forward to more in the future.
