From what you have said, this may well be a plausible interpretation
It does indeed read that way to me.
It would be helpful to know more about the source of your quotation though. Is this the local press reporting accurately or merely wishful thinking?
It's from a local paper, all the other articles I have read by them are detailed and seem to be very accurate. It describes (on the same page) his visit on the 11th in detail.
are you able to find out from board minutes or similar when the BoT approval was formally confirmed and when the first timetabled passenger services ran?
No unfortunately I don't know when the BOT certificate was issued. The first official public trains started two weeks later on 1st September. The newspaper does report that Col Hutchinson "expressed no dissatisfaction" and that 1st September was to be the date of the first passenger train.
I can however give the time scale for his visit a year later for the rest of the line. Like this first inspection, it was a Friday. He had seven miles to inspect, two stations, numerous bridges and several signal boxes to look at. He completed this in just over three hours. Five days later (on the Wednesday) the certificate was issued.
Now that's a quick turn round. This first inspection would have been a quicker one, only one station, two boxes and thirteen bridges all on just a two mile stretch.
I could imagine a scenario:
The L&Y would have known about these Sunday school trips in advance as they were an annual event. It could be the L&Y sent a letter (or even faster a telegram) to the BOT asking if the inspection was successful, and if so, could they run these two trips on Friday the 18th. The reply could well have been "yes" regarding the inspection, and possibly "yes, as long as it's not before Thursday 17th" or "as long as you've received the certificate"...
The organisers of these two trips would have needed to know in advance, otherwise they would have had to organise horse drawn buses from the town to either Rose Grove or Burnley stations for their onward journey.
The article goes on to say that because they were starting from the station that
"they were more than usually attractive".
The two trips were 4am for Bangor, and 5.30am for Morecambe. I would say these two trips from the station would only be the two miles to Rose Grove, there they would change trains.
It really does look like the children and accompanying adults on these two trips were indeed the first public to travel the line. The larger than usual up take for the trips and the fact the meeting point was the railway station suggest so to me. Otherwise, why pick the station as a meeting point?