Wigan Album

In 1936/37, a railway line crossed the A573, adjacent to the old Spring View Police Station. I was only a small child, but I can remember the engine driver, or fireman lifting me onto the footplate. We lived opposite the police station. The traffic then was negligible. A man would hold up a red flag when the engine, and wagons were crossing. The engine would take the wagons to some sort of works behind where we lived.

Albert, I was often lifted up onto the footplate of the engines shunting at Springs Branch as a small child in the late 1950s when my older brother used to take me to collect his wages. His married a lady from across the road from the police station in 1961.

Hi Albert. The railway line you refer to went to the coke works and was still in use certainly during the 50's. The disused track was still there at least as long as 1968 when I left home.

A vastly change scene had developed when I lived in the police house opposite Clapgate Lane, August, 1962 to July, 1964.
Now, I suppose it has vastly changed again, since I lived there.

The line you mention, Albert, was a bit south of the police station - running behind the houses on Coronation Street, on which the side of the Police Station sits. In one of the old Parish Magazines of St Mary's there was a report of a young lad being killed by falling under a wagon on that track - presumably he'd tried to jump on for a ride. The report mention 'Rescue Cottage', but I've not been able to locate it on the Old Maps site (image of this crossing and the Goose Green one to follow).

Hi Albert, with our house overlooking the springs branch sheds we was always playing on the turntable, in the hot house, and going in the sheds, and was always allowed to go on the footplate when the trains was leaving the sheds, but the engine driver's always made us get off the train when leaving the sheds because of safety reasons.

The man in the photo is my great grandfather Robert Green