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Photos of Wigan
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Wigan Album

Central Station

45 Comments

Wigan Central Station
Wigan Central Station
Photo: RON HUNT
Views: 3,923
Item #: 33126
A view of the station taken from outside of the casino 1960's?

Comment by: RON HUNT on 29th April 2021 at 22:25

Who can name all the makes of cars on the image?

Comment by: whups on 30th April 2021 at 00:02

i can still remember the gates & lines at the bottom of king st .

Comment by: Eric |R. on 30th April 2021 at 05:36

Ron, A great photo. I have many memories of Central Station with its wooden flooring and platform. Of Saturday morning shopping trips to Wigan, boarding the noisy rattling old tank engine powered steam trains from Westleigh and Bedford Station with my grandparents, parents, and aunt and cousin, in the late 1940s and 1950s. A building that was part of the history of Wigan
I believe the visible cars present on the forecourt to the station are from left to right - Bedford van/Dormobile,Austin 8 circa 1938/40, Sunbeam Rapier, Austin A35. Parked on the road facing the camera - Ford Anglia.

Comment by: Pete Barker on 30th April 2021 at 06:17

Just up from the old swimming baths.

Comment by: Irene Roberts on 30th April 2021 at 08:59

The car on the road is a Ford 100E. On the car park are an Austin A30 with a Triumph Spitfire behind it, a Sunbeam, (Rootes Group), an Austin A12 and a Bedford CA Van.

Comment by: Irene Roberts on 30th April 2021 at 09:01

PS....Oddly, I don't remember Central Station! I never went further down Station Road than The Ritz Pictures! xx

Comment by: Chris Southworth on 30th April 2021 at 09:49

Whups, I think you are a bit astray with your geography there. The station was nowhere near King St.

Comment by: RON HUNT on 30th April 2021 at 11:13

Just noticed the bus shelter I can remember them being down Library street Never saw any of them smashed up!!!!!!!!!There must be some correlation between the lack of deterrent and the increase in vandalism and other crime..

Comment by: Veronica on 30th April 2021 at 13:27

I passed this station many times but only peeped inside once just to see what it was like.
If it had been in any other upmarket town it would have been renovated to live in or a an upmarket restaurant. It looked so quaint.

Comment by: Albert.S. on 30th April 2021 at 13:56

Ron. Top right hand corner. Is that the edging of some kind of veranda?.

Comment by: Veronica on 30th April 2021 at 14:22

The station was on Station Rd just past the children's library , not too far from the old swimming baths on Millgate. If I was going 'up town' sometimes I would walk down Scholes and turn at the Horseshoe pub and carry along Station Rd., or up Millgate where the old baths were.

Comment by: Ray on 30th April 2021 at 14:36

The Grand Arcade is built on this very site.

Comment by: Pw on 30th April 2021 at 15:33

Used to catch the train from Hindley South to watch Wigan at Central Park.I remember there was a fireplace showroom inside the station.

Comment by: Cyril on 30th April 2021 at 16:27

Albert, wasn't there an art deco type canopy above the Empress Café and ballroom, I'm sure I've seen a photo of it before they had put up the large white Casino canopy.

I've found an advertising poster on the Album showing the canopy, but it's not as I thought it was, I'm possibly thinking of another building.
https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=1072&gallery=Empress+Ballroom&offset=0

Comment by: Elizabeth on 30th April 2021 at 16:51

You are so right Veronica,about that station,it looked really good. The 'town planners' seem to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Comment by: Veronica on 30th April 2021 at 16:59

Actually Elizabeth I always thought it was far nicer than the other two stations.

Comment by: wigginlad on 30th April 2021 at 17:03

Albert S, the veranda I think was part of the old Empress Ballroom later to become Wigan Northern Soul all night club. Just about this spot was the terminus for the 15 Bolton, 17 Haigh, 18 Horwich, all the bus services that went via Aspull.

Comment by: Elizabeth on 30th April 2021 at 17:34

Definitely it was,Veronica.

Comment by: CJAlan on 30th April 2021 at 18:01

I believe the station closed in 1964 and was demolished soon after so it might give an indication about when this photograph was taken.

Comment by: Rev David Long on 30th April 2021 at 19:14

Well, I suppose the 'town planners' could have told British Rail to pull one of the other stations down and put this one in its place... or turned Central Station into the Northern Soul nightspot.. or what? What on earth do you do with a redundant railway terminus, however weird its architectural features?

Comment by: Jarvo on 30th April 2021 at 20:24

Believe it or not, but you could buy a ticket to London from here. The long journey would take you to St Pancras via Manchester and Derby. Am I correct, train buffs?

Comment by: RON HUNT on 30th April 2021 at 22:24

I went to Old Trafford a couple of times from here The station was right outside the ground at the back of the Main Stand

Comment by: Eric on 30th April 2021 at 22:32

That’s true jarvo,there where 2 prestige trains that ran from Manchester to London,the peaks and the palatine,you would have to change at Manchester central to get to london from Wigan central

Comment by: whups on 1st May 2021 at 00:03

chris i never mentioned the station i was on about the lines further down at the bottom of king st .

Comment by: NigB on 1st May 2021 at 00:33

After the station closed it was used as a bathroom showroom by George Makinsons. The last train was on 2nd November 1964.

Comment by: Grace-Ann Davies on 1st May 2021 at 08:05

We used to catch the train to Jump,Barnsley from here change at Penistone when I was young.

Comment by: Elizabeth on 1st May 2021 at 09:48

In reply to what use it would have been, lot of things it seems.

Comment by: Brendell on 1st May 2021 at 09:54

I believe my cousin Jenny and I used to travel into Wigan from Ince arriving at this station. There was a multi storey car park on this site for many years after it was demolished.

Comment by: Norman Cunliffe on 1st May 2021 at 10:09

A friend of mine worked in the ticket Office of the Central Station. He persuaded us to use the Central Station line to go to watch Wigan R L v Liverpool Stanley. I can't remember how convenient or otherwise it was but it didn't matter because Wigan won.
When the station closed it became a showroom for bathroom furniture

Comment by: Veronica on 1st May 2021 at 10:11

Does anyone know when this station was built? I have a 5x Grt grandmother who came from Penistone Yorkshire.. wondering if this is the Station she arrived at. She married at the Parish Church in the early 1830's.

Comment by: Veronica on 1st May 2021 at 11:16

One thing for sure if the Northern Soul had been based there , it would most likely have still been burned down.

Comment by: Barrie on 1st May 2021 at 12:55

Central Station dates back to the opening of the line from Darlington Street to Central station 01-08-1892 as part of the Wigan Junction Railway/Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire railway extension of 1883. In 1906 it was absorbed into the Great Central Railway then in 1923 it became part of the LNER. This info gain from the 1992 edition of "The Industrial Railways of the Wigan Coalfield Coalfield pt 1. I think I travelled from Central station in the 1950's with my parents on a day outing.

Comment by: John on 1st May 2021 at 14:20

Brendell, if you arrived at Wigan Central you would have got on the train at Lower Ince station. That station closed in November 1964 as did Wigan Central for passenger traffic. In the early sixties, very early in the morning before 6 o'clock, newspapers used to be set out for sale inside the entrance to the station. Nobody was there to sell you them and you just put your money in a tin.

Comment by: Irene Roberts on 1st May 2021 at 17:21

John, I never knew that and find it fascinating! And I'm sure people were honest in paying for them.

Comment by: John on 1st May 2021 at 17:37

Irene, I'm sure that people must have been honest or they wouldn't have carried on selling them like that,. Any thieves would still be in bed at that time of day!

Comment by: DerekB on 1st May 2021 at 18:25

My first job on leaving school was at what was formerly the massive Risley Royal Ordnance Factory which, by that time, had become HMS Risley and a Royal Navy stores. I used to get the train at some ungodly hour from Wigan Central which had a loop line from the main line to Manchester Central which had been constructed just pre WW2 and into Risley's own railway station

Comment by: Veronica on 1st May 2021 at 18:53

My dad worked at Risley after being demobbed for a time, he must have used that railway station then. He hadn't far to walk.
I wonder if travel was free to go to the Risley factory. As it was free to travel to Chorley ROF in the mid sixties early seventies.

Comment by: Dave johnson on 1st May 2021 at 22:05

My grandad worked on the station then when it closed transfered to the goods yard off Darlington st.

Comment by: Mr X on 1st May 2021 at 23:09

Hard to believe that it is now in the Grand Arcade. I think that was the bus stop for routes going up Whelley to New Springs, Horwich, Blackrod and the 15 to Bolton where you would see both Wigan and Bolton Corporation buses.

Comment by: DerekB on 2nd May 2021 at 11:54

Veronica , travel to Risley wasn't free when it had become a RN stores. The princely sum of four shillings (20p to younger visitors to the site) was deducted from my wages to cover rail travel.

Comment by: Veronica on 2nd May 2021 at 13:21

By the time I started at Chorley ROF in '66 Derek it was coaches for travel although just previous to that trains ran there. I recall seeing the rail lines. I was never as well off by working there, I loved it, no travelling expenses , even the laundry was done for you. The only bug bear was the clumpy, laced up shoes we had to wear.

Comment by: Carolaen on 3rd May 2021 at 09:56

Mr X. I remember the Bolton buses very well going from Scholes to see relatives in Aspull. They always seemed more exotic - I think the conductor wore a lighter coloured uniform and a different ticket machine. In my minds the I always think of the Bolton bus colours as Brown and cream, but the official description is Maroon and cream.

Comment by: Carolaen on 3rd May 2021 at 11:07

Mr X. I remember the Bolton buses very well going from Scholes to see relatives in Aspull. They always seemed more exotic - I think the conductor wore a lighter coloured uniform and a different ticket machine. In my minds the I always think of the Bolton bus colours as Brown and cream, but the official description is Maroon and cream.

Comment by: baker boy on 3rd May 2021 at 20:23

rev long
what should have happened was ,it should have remained open.beeching did not save money at all, he cost the country millions upon millions.
towns like leigh having no rail links,a preposterous notion .swallowed by a 1960's council that believed government tripe about buses can take the strain.
eg an estimated £768 million to restore the cambridge/ oxford rail link,most of which is mothballed.

Comment by: Pete Barker on 5th May 2021 at 03:32

IIRC Central park was named from this railway station ?

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