Wigan Album

Not as exciting as spotting the steam locos and finding "namers" hurtling through town on their way to exotic climes like Crewe, Preston and Brum!!

There always seemed to be trainspotters at Wigan N. W. at one time, Preston station always had a lot as well, they are seldom seen nowadays; trainspotting seemed to fade out in the 1990s.

On a light hearted note, in view of comments made on P a D (1st Feb) about the misuse of the word train, do trainspotters spot trains, engines or locomotives?

Yes.

Cheapest form of entertainment 1d for 8 hours. How exciting to see a 'Namer' you hadn't seen before.

Trainspotters generally spot locomotives..........not many trainspotters these days as the types of locomotives now running are pretty boring and there is not much variety. In my youth I used to buy my platform ticket at North Western and spend many a happy hour watching the steam engines go by and spotting an occasional diesel!

1952/3 saw me every Saturday ALL day on Wigan NW platform with my pack lunch & bottle of pop. Anyone still out there remember the shouts of amber, double amber, green ....semi ! as each of the daily glasgow, Birmingham or London expresses thundered through. When the odd one stopped we would clean the cabside numbers with our sleeves ....sad or what ?