Wigan Album

Should be Whitley Crossing

A Stanier Black Five hauls what appears to be BR mk1 coaches. Another belter Orrellite.

Elm,s Bridge on the horizon.

The crossing looks familiar to me. When we lived with my grandparents in St Clements Rd my sister & I would run to a crossing with a slag heap nearby to watch what I thought was the Flying Scotsman go by but I think it was another engine we used to see. We approached the crossing from the right hand side of the pic, would my memory be correct ? On trying to find the crossing some few years ago we found it was all built on right up to the tracts.

Slag heap Helen ?? Scouts Hill it was called !! But yes, it did consist of slag.

Helen, there is a footbridge over the tracks where the
crossing was and it is all fenced off from the rear of what was Beech Hill R.O.F., now Milliken Carpets.

Forgive me,But what is that round disc for, it looks like a small no entry sign?

Roy, sorry to sound pedantic but Scouts Hill is not a slag heap! It's a dirt ruck, the pit waste from Elms Coll.

ground signal giving access from rylands sidings to main line going north

Tommyt, no problem, if I tell you it is 65 years ago when I was at St Michaels that I was last on Scouts Hill you may forgive me for the mistake, I was lucky to remember it was Scouts Hill !!!

Ann, It's a ground signal that give the driver the all clear once the points were set.

Ann..The red & white signal is known by railway staff and enthusiasts as a "Ground Dolly". There are 2 small holes at
one end of the red stripe, and behind the holes is a white
light. The top hole is fitted with a red lens, and the lower
hole is fitted with a green lens. To the left of the Dolly is a railway track siding. When the red stripe is showing
horizontal, as in the picture, it means STOP, but when the
red stripe is in a diagonal position (Like 10 to 8 on a clock face) it means GO. When it is dark, the red or green
will indicate the position of the red stripe. The Dolly was
controlled from the nearby Signal Box. Ray.

There was also a tennis club on scouts hill.,which was owned by the Methodist church,and on the other side of the railway lines there was a smaller (slag heap) which was named cubs hill

TommyT and Roy,

as a Swinleyite myself, with my mates I roamed across Whitley Fields and train spotted on the crossing in those years before the Girls High School was built. We used to try to dam the stream as well.

Scouts Hill was always known to us locally as a 'slag' heap, which did puzzle me as I knew slag was the byproduct of a furnace and this was coal pit waste.

So I reckon you're both right.

I'm away to join the Pendants Society now.

TommyT and Roy,

as a Swinleyite myself, with my mates I roamed across Whitley Fields and train spotted on the crossing in those years before the Girls High School was built. We used to try to dam the stream as well.

Scouts Hill was always known to us locally as a 'slag' heap, which did puzzle me as I knew slag was the byproduct of a furnace and this was coal pit waste.

So I reckon you're both right.

I'm away to join the Pendants Society now.

Asked before. Why the little distant signal! Anyone can help?

Barry, if I remember rightly, the small signal was used to release the loaded trains back onto the main line. There was a similar signal just south of here which would give permission to enter the sidings

The slag heap to the right of this picture is Scout's Hill. There was a smaller slag heap on the left of the picture which was known as Cub's Hill. The signal is a 'dolly' and is a shunting signal for trains/engines in the sidings.

We used to find pieces of cardboard, plywood, trays etc., in fact anything that we could sit on to slide down the side of Scouts Hill. When we got bikes we used to push them up to the top and ride down the steepest side. No H & S or people watching over us then, just us having a good time. We also used to try to dam the stream and dare each other to wade the stream under the railway. If we got thirsty we used to drink the water out of the stream and I seem to remember there being a pond there as well.