The study examines working class railway excursions in the setting of Oldham and Saddleworth; a relatively small area close to Manchester that sits Janus-like between industrial East Lancashire and West Yorkshire, with the Pennines and open moorland forming a natural border. To put the work into context, it concentrates on the evolution of excursions as a social institution in the area, from a point when railways were established in 1830 until 1915 by which time such journeys were diminishing with the advent of alternative modes of travel and destinations. All of which encouraged many working class people to look further afield for their leisure activities. These two ostensibly different areas were linked by the trans-Pennine railways that connected parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire from 1842 onwards.
The study uses research criteria into the complex interaction between availability, accessibility and affordability in the evaluation of railway excursions. Availability comes in the form of the establishment of rail links to and from the area that offered opportunities for a new type of travel and to experience new spaces. Accessibility considers the time constraints placed on workers as they moved from a home based economy to that of industrialization with a restriction on their leisure time and subsequent progress on how they were overcome. Affordability briefly considers the economics of excursions and excursionists that ensured the development of this type of leisure. The study also acknowledges the continuity and change of some forms of leisure activities from ca1830 although their developments are by no means exclusive to one-day journeys by rail
