A ST ANNES rail enthusiast has had an article about the Fylde coast's railway heyday published in Britain's premier historical railway magazine, Steam World.

Eric Woods, 80, wrote the article -- illustrated by some of his own evocative pictures -- which focuses on the massive influx of scheduled and excursion steam trains which travelled along the coast line into the old Blackpool Central Station.

He describes the huge variety of rail traffic that thundered along the coastal line in what was considered the golden age of rail travel such as 1936 when more than six million people travelled to Blackpool by train. Eric moved to the St Annes in 1954 and commuted to Preston for nine years, which fed his desire to learn more about the history of the line. He said: "Even in the summer of 1963, just before Central Station closed a year later, there were still hundreds of thousands of people coming in."

Eric, who is still a member of Blackpool and Fylde Rail Users Association, said he shot cin film on the route between 1963 and the end of steam in 1968.

"Such was the volume of traffic in the holiday season that empty carriages used to be stabled in every available space - such as the sidings at St Annes, Ansdell and Fairhaven."

So big was the rail industry, and so popular a destination was Blackpool, that hundreds of thousands of passengers would visit the resort every day during the busiest periods.