Wigan Album

Hi Harry, The signal box was just to the left of the white van. My Grandfather used to take me into this box in the mid 1930's when I was 6 -8 years old. He had retired by then but he told me that he was the first signalman at the next box going towards Bickershaw when it first opened. This was about 200 yards before you got to Bickershaw Lane alongside the big slag heaps. These were used as a rifle range by the Home Guard during the war.

Hi Eric,The signal box,footbridge & dive under junction that once existed at Bickershaw junction was very much before my time as it had all sadly gone by the time that i first expirenced what was left of this former LNWR main line,that itself was in its twylight years when i took this photo.
I did briefly meet a BR relief signalman called peter hampson who used to work bickershaw junction box in the 60s & was probably one of the last men to work the box,(pete later moved away to work boxes in the crewe area),but has since retired from the railways in the early 1990s.

This photo brings back a lot of memories.The C.W.R. was laid at the side of the original track and then the original was taken up when the C.W.R. was operational.We had problems around the reverse curve between the junction and bridge 8[Bickershaw Lane].Because the new track was on the inside of the reverse curve,making the radius of the curve smaller, we had trouble stressing the new track.When we tried to pull the rails to the required tension it kept buckling sidewards and pushing the side rollers out.Possibly the Technicians had got their calculations wrong.When this track was put in there was indications that the pit was going to close but it was rumoured that because contracts had been signed the work had to be carried out.I don't know if it is true what was said.

I used to visit the signalbox at Bickershaw Junction in the 1960,s when my friend Jack Murphy was a signalman there.The tracks then were still a through route to Manchester, carrying both passenger and freight trains and what a busy place it was back then.I still walk in the area regularly and it is hard to believe that this was once such a busy place.Its main role would now seem to be one of a dumping ground and a race-track for off-road bikers.It really is a sad and depressing place to someone who has seen it as it used to be.It just shows how much freight traffic has been moved from the rail network (where it was better for everybody including the environment) and put onto the roads.The politicians involved in the mass rail closures of the 1960,s have certainly a lot to answer for.Destroying a rail network that was once the envy of the world is the worst mistake ever made.

If you want to see how Bickershaw Junction used to look when there was a working railway still in place, go to Album contents and press Assorted. On the right of the page it shows a coal train from Bickershaw Coll passing the box.