Wigan Album

A good nostalgic photo Veronica, I remember inside all the steps and tunnels for the different platforms, and strange to see it with only one man coming out, usually it was thronging with folks and also post office vans toing and froing with bags of mail.

I only remember the
‘ tunnels’ with water dripping down the walls Cyril and it always seemed a long walk going to the ‘Blackpool’
Platform...

Cyril and Veronica, I really don't have much memory of this, but I must have been there because Veronica mentions "Blackpool platform" and we (mum and kids) sometimes caught the train to Blackpool. One of my great aunts had a large boarding house in Blackpool.
I remember the other railway stations.

I was always more excited going to that station Ian in the fifties. It meant the journey was longer and Blackpool had more going on. Plus the sea wasn’t miles out of reach. It was very rare occasions the tide was in at Southport. We had to make do with the Peter Pan for paddling… .

We only ever went to Southport from Ince Station when I was a child, so I never knew any of the Wigan Stations until I was an adult. My daughter and I sometimes went to Southport and Manchester from Wigan Wallgate when she was in her teens, and we did go to York and to Shrewsbury from Wigan North Western, (I think we had to change at Crewe for Shrewsbury), and I remember some very old-fashioned steps, but I think the station had been mostly modernised by then. I would have loved to have seen it in its old-fashioned setting. I remember seeing an article many years ago where Wigan North Western had been enlivened by artwork in Wigan dialect, ( it may have been done by students), with things like "Ey-Up" and "Sithee" etc, on the walls, and I remember thinking they should have put "Mind tha' dunt faw!" on the white line at the edge of the platform!

Another time I remember was in the bad weather of 1963 when a large group of us went on the North Western Station to see off my friend Pat and her family. They were the original £10 Poms emigrating to Perth WA. I can still see Pat and her mum hanging out of the train window waving. The lighting on the station was very dim as I recall and it was a dark night in February.
I always remember the occasion whenever I go on the station these days. I very often go up to the Lakes from there and Lytham of course and Edinburgh. I love train journeys.

That line says it all
Before Renovations Very Different To Today exactly
theres no litter !

Irene, Veronica and Cyril, I remember that we went to Blackpool reasonably often to stay in the large boarding house, which was near North Pier. This was to give us a short holiday and a change of environment. Also, my mum would help out at the boarding house and we would sometimes help.
Regarding the other railway stations, my grandparents lived very close to one of the stations and many of the employees knew my grandfather very well; this was wonderful for us, because they allowed us to be on the platform to watch the trains come in and go out. Additionally, we were allowed to sit on the big parcel carriers/trolleys.
I often walked past, with my parents at times and my grandparents at other times, the old railway station on Station Road, which was near Stairgate.
I, with parents and later with friends, often used Wigan Wallgate Station to go to places like Southport.
Old railway stations are wonderful additions to our culture, landscape, architecture and history. It is such a shame that we have lost many to modernisation.

I was born in Scholes and left in my twenties but I can honestly say I had never stepped foot on the Station Rd station. Walked past many times and I thought the outside was nicer than the other two stations.

Ian, thankyou for that.....it must have been an experience to help out at the boarding house.....a neighbour of mine,( sadly long deceased), had a friend who had a boarding house in Blackpool and used to "help out" there, and told us so many interesting takes of the amount of bacon and eggs cooked each morning and the disciplined order it took to undertake that task! My late brother Colin worked at Springs Branch Railway and many times as a child I was lifted onto the platforms of the engines of the steam-trains to see the firemen shovelling coal into the fire-boxes, (can you imagine that being allowed today?!). My husband and I are 1940s re-enactors and have been fortunate to travel on the old steam trains at Pickering at the 1940s events.....magical!

It may well have been a grimy and blackened old station, but it was good for travellers.

Lovely warm heated waiting room with comfortable upholstered seating.

A proper refreshment room, with quite reasonable food by British Railways standards.

I seem to remember ( Ive got it in my head!) a fruit merchant premises at the side of there somewhere? I'm going back to the 1960's.
Can anybody clarify that?

You wouldn’t be thinking of the Fyffe’s banana ripening buildings that used to be on the old goods yard where the car park is now situated would you Rich ?

I'd forgotten about that Ozy, I remember too when Dostaf started a discussion thread about it on communicate some years ago now.
Ray in 2021 put a photo on the Album showing the Fyffes buildings that were in the goods yard.

Irene, it was! I'm not sure how many guests the boarding house could hold at one given time, but it was a mansion to us young kids.
I remember the dining room was at the front part of the house and extremely large; possibly, two rooms knocked into one. There was a very large bay window
and a high ceiling. The room was filled with tables and chairs. In the morning, it was full of guests and breakfast was as you mentioned, lots of fried eggs and bacon.
We helped to take the cutlery and crockery to the hatch or the kitchen and to tidy the dining room: we had been brought up to always help around the house and so it wasn't anything unusual to us.

I’m assuming this photograph is possibly from the 1950s or 60s. Wigan NW underwent a massive regeneration and rebuild in the early 1970s. The West Coast Mail Line was electrified in 1974 so I assume the station was modernised to accommodate the upgraded rail services. The picture is quite surreal in that there is only one person outside the station. It’s like a pic taken very early on a Sunday morning.

CJ