Wigan Album

aitch was forge field near here, st williams ,use to play rugby on it we'd cross a line which looked very much like this one

Thanks for this pic, Aitch.We used to call this area the White Gates.You reached it by going down Raven Street, (now Maple Avenue) and under the railway bridge. We used to purposely stand under the bridge, as children, when a train was coming to hear it thundering over our heads! If you crossed the white gates, it led up to The Three Bridges.....under these and you came out at Melling's Flash and Melling's Farm.

The line crossing with the loco and carriages is the Manchester Victoria, to Wigan line going over the branch line from Springs Branch into the Wagon Works

A pic from a similar viewpoint in Part One of 'The Industrial Railways of the Wigan Coalfield' shows a loco waiting on the right of this crossing. The captions says it has come from Low Hall shed, and is waiting to cross the Springs Branch line to proceed to the Lancs & Yorks sidings at Ince. From that I deduce here the train is from Manchester, approaching (Higher) Ince Station. The loco in the foreground is facing East towards Ince Viaduct' (really a series of opening in the embankment for the canal and the railways), heading towards Manchester Road.

The man on the crossing would probably have come through the Devils tunnel from Ince, to the right is the Park forge out of picture, and the loco is going into the Wagon works, which later became Thompsons scrap where we broke everything breakable up, the path to the left would take you to Laburnam Avenue, and the train on the main line is just short of Ince station.

Is this the line that went through the wagon works to kirkless? I made that trip a few times.

We got to this area down Patricroft Road, over "owd Chals" field,under the bridge,over the rail lines through the gates and picnic near the little brook.Mrs Melling and Mrs Grundy used to take lots of the neighbourhood children(me included)to this area and we had hours of fun,usually getting wet,while the ladies got on with their chat.
Further on you could get to Ince Park through what was known as Devils Tunnel but I was always frightened of going through unless there was a big gang of us.
Aitch, thanks for more memories .

Rev, the line crossing the main drag went to the sidings at Ince station, I can vaguely remember a line going over what we called mellings to low hall pit sidings, and the line going under the bridge did indeed go to the top place, over Manchester road, and crossing Belle Green lane

Like Tony I remember playing Rugby on the Forge Field some time we had the England- Ireland match. you name origin dictated which team you played for We went down Patricroft road then under a bridge... was it this one?

I remember the line going to Low Hall, it ran alongside where the rubberdump was, and crossed thr G.C. line just after. I remember it being used, we would hang on to the buffers of the last wagon it didn't have a guards van.

thats the one Roland, the line ran right behind Laburnam avenue and stopped neat the signal box for Ince station.

This is a good 'un Aitch. I am correct in thinking that Gullicks is across to the right and the foreground left to right single led into the forge making the 'old' Gullicks entrance at the bottom of Laburnum just a bit behind the viewer? Lots of action and lots of interest.