leased company until it was dissolved on 1 July 1888 under an LNWR Act dated 7 August of that year. A joint committee was appointed by the LNWR and the L&YR to manage the P&WR network. The line was now known as the Preston and Wyre Joint Line. Preston and Longridge Railway The Preston and Longridge Railway opened in 1840, connecting quarries north east of Preston to a terminal at Deepdale Street, in Preston. The company was taken over by the Fleetwood, Preston and West Riding Junction Railway in 1847 which planned to connect the Preston and Wyre line to the Longridge line by building a tunnel through high ground. Its ambitious title was justified by a plan to build eastward from the Longridge line to Clitheroe and Skipton that was never built. The new section of line in Preston joining the Preston and Wyre Railway near Maudlands with a level crossing of the Lancaster line opened on 14 January 1850. The FP&WRJR was short of money and suspended operating the Longridge line for three weeks in 1852. The Preston and Longridge company resumed control in 1856, and later that year the FP&WRJR took over again. It opened a station at Maudland Bridge on 1 November 1856. For some time goods and mineral wagons were transferred from the Longridge line to the Preston main line station by crossing from Maudland Bridge to the Preston and Wyre line west of the main line and reversing and using the P&WR connection on to the main line. The Longridge line built its own connection southwards, opening for passengers and goods on 1 June 1885. Developments The main line was doubled as far as Burn Naze by 10 August 1846. The embankment between Burn Naze and Fleetwood was to be retained as the up line and a single line, some distance from the original, following a two-mile deviation around the shore was built as the down line opening on 13 January 1851. Problems with the embankment and timber trestle sections caused the original line's abandonment at the same time. The deviation line was a single line that ran to Dock Street in Fleetwood, but entered the station from the south-west. A goods depot was built beyond the passenger station. The deviation was doubled in 1875. The Blackpool branch was doubled by an Act of 26 May 1865, paid for by the companies in proportion.