Wigan Album

A nice photo Steven, but it does also remind me of how foolish I had been when parting with my video of The Signalman.

we ran up the bank
the wet soggy lank
hid bi a tree
two friends and me
then came the ghost
black noise the most
shaking the ground
the trees all around
they warned.. never look
but childhood mistuck
a temptation too great
and a smell on soul paint

Is the bridge in the photo still there?

Ian

The bridge was removed in the early 1980's and the gap filled in and the road was straightened out (reorientated) because there was a sharp 'kink' in Red Rock Lane, where the road turned to go over the bridge and although there is still a turn in the road there, it is no where near as sharp a turn as it was when the bridge was there and today on one side of the road, the original side of the bridge is still there and from that you can tell the extent to which the road was straightened out.

I always fancied a job on the old-world railways working in a quiet mechanical signalbox on a secondary line like this one at Red Rock. Some might think it too boring a job, but if it was a scenic, room-with-a-view location, I'd take it any day.

Pull a few levers, bell on the local passenger train to the next station, make a brew, light your pipe and settle back with the newspaper for an hour or so before pulling a few more levers for the pick-up goods.....

Nearby Whelley Junction was another box I'd have liked - a bit busier than Red Rock though, with all the goods trains travelling over the Whelley Loop.

I definitely did not fancy a busy main-line box like Bamfurlong or Euxton Junction - on your feet the whole shift and a bad back from working so many points and signals all day.

Nowadays a lot of the railway is controlled by computer, so it would be sitting on an office chair in a darkened air-conditioned Control Centre, clicking a mouse and staring at train numbers moving across coloured screens, without seeing the actual trains, the weather or the countryside they were travelling through.

You might like to take me along with you 'Leccy' - I'll supply the enamel brew cans and butty boxes. It might then also be possible for us to create some sort of small terrace for the sole planting of a few convenience spuds . . . this here scented cavendish isn't half having an effect.