Wigan Album

is that st william's church in the background

it sure is st williams church in the back ground

No - it's Christ Church. The site of the sheds is now the housing estate off Ince Green Lane - Spindlewood etc. The concrete area in the foreground of this and the other shot is still there - it bridges over the sunken track of the Wigan Central - Irlam line, and actually looks more like a canal, being flooded with water.

my mistake rev im getting mixed up with the one on ince green lane

When My dad worked at WIGGIN WAGGIN WORKS it were just off Manchester Road Ince not here............Is this part of it?

It's known localy as Ince parish Church.

My Dad worked at the same Wagon Works as your Dad, Gerry. The main entrance was on Manchester Road, but my Dad used to come out of a little gate at the bottom of George St., and I used to meet him at dinner-time. This is either a different Wagon Works, or another part of it.

The building to the left with the blue doors was the place were I first started work in 1954, then it was part of the wagon works foundry, making axle boxes for wagons as well as name plates as well, my job was as a dresser, by that I would file the burrs off the boxes and plates, with an emery wheel, I finished up with an hernia, so I wasn't long in that job, at the end of its working life that same building was a wagon repair shop as well as the ones to the right, I was still working there when it closed in the early 80s sold to a firm called Booker McConnel, who only wanted our contacts (at the time we were making and repairing steel pallets as well as running the scrap part)I had some very happy days in that yard, and the rev is right about the GC railway, part of it is still in place, but known locally as the floods, the other scrap yard picture was the site of the original Wigan Wagon Works, our place being Ince wagon, and the one on Ince Bar being the Central Wagon, Ince and the Central were part of the same group, but the Wigan one was a company all on its own.

Didn't this used to be site of the old Welch Pits and Church Ironworks. There are 2 big white circles of concrete nearby to north of the Pemberton loop crossing by a few yards and obscured a little by small tree. Anyonr know what the are? There was a pumping station nearby too to dewater the GC cutting

I had to take a look didn't I? I worked here in the mid 60's. Behind those blue doors on the left. My job then was making tanker cars, fitting large tanks onto the rolling stock. In between I'd be welding roofing bars for hydraulic support in the coal mines. (Remember coal mines???
Anyone remember Dave Smith, give him my email!!!

One thing the did and I could never understand how they got away with it, was to push old passenger cars onto the rails in the forground, then set fire to them so they could just pick out the scrap later. Huge clouds of 'toxic' smoke rolled out of them for hours.
Ah, the good old days.

we used to set the coaches alight at Patricroft road as well Ken, also some times tar tankers to clean them out for burning up, the main site for the burning was were the new Medical centre is now just off the road near to the Black Diamond