Nick279
Member
EARLY CHILDHOOD MEMOIRS AND MIDDLETON`S LOST RAILWAYS
PART 1
EARLY DAZE
As much as I hate to admit it now, but as a child I was a hardened trainspotter, for the uninitiated amongst us, the specie is also known as a Gricer(Gricerous Sp) or an Anorak (Anorakatus anorakatus jotus), the more state-of-the-art term being a Rail Enthusiast (Enthusiastico railus sado). On a blistery and wet Saturday afternoon or during the long hot summer school holidays, yours truly, along with a number of accomplishes, would spend our leisure hours sat on the railway station at Newton Heath, while occasionally running the gauntlet and Bunk the locomotive sheds, often to the sounds of Oi You as a disgruntled shed foreman sprinted after us, blue in the face and with the sight of pulsating veins clearly visible across his forehead.
I do, however, think that my misspent youth, in pursuit of those elusive steam locomotives, may have recently paid dividends, some thirty years down the line (no pun intended) and the echoes of gricerism are still apparently active in that the nature of my relatively recent MSc was a little number entitled An Integrated and Comparative Analysis of Rail Transport Networks in selected European Countries (its amazing what you can get away with in the name of environmental sciences!), despite the dissertation title, my research did take me to many European railway destinations, (and the pub networks of course, nothing quite like a nice unassuming bottle of claret while gently cruising down the Seine) and while in Germany and Holland a chance to relive those long lost days of steam. A more recent visit to the East Lancashire Railway at Bury encouraged me even further. Its an experience no true gricer can ever forget, the scent and smell of burning coal, oil, steam and something that flew in your eye every time you leant out of the window, I suppose it sort of gets in the blood, or at least it certainly did for me, when all those long lost halcyon days, memories came flooding back.
The area of Middleton holds some particularly found memories of steam trains, and it was really only after the infamous Dr Beeching`s axe fell in the 1960`s that signalled not only the end of steam, the closure of many branch lines, cross country services and even main line routes, like the Midland Railways Manchester Central connection, the famed Great Central, the ill-fated Waverley Route and the Somerset and Dorset (the route of the Pines Express), but also the beginning to the end of a way of life for many and indeed the end of a great era. No longer would the much feared shed master at Newton Heath shed, chase away those adolescent hardened criminals, hell-bent on jotting down all his elusive engine numbers that once occupied the depot.
I can still recall paying my last respects to steam, it was in the late sixties, on a pilgrimage to the hallowed Woodham Brothers scrap yard at Barry Island in South Wales, the graveyard of the steam engine, the rusting, once proud Pacifics sat on isolated trackwork awaiting an uncertain fate. A cosmopolitan mixture of ex Great Western, LMS, LNER and Southern Region locomotives, which at the time, I considered would be my last contact with these iron giants of the permanent way. It was only by chance, that but a few years later I stumbled across some more steam locomotives in Hungary this time, located in an overgrown goods yard, not far from Budapest, like huge grazing dinosaurs, restricted in their last eastern European stronghold and like their British counterparts, not very long from the cutters torch. Deeper forays into foreign parts, saw me photographing the mighty double headed Skoda coal trains leaving Bulgarias Black Sea Coast at Bourgas en route for the capital at Sofia, overseas travels from Montreal to New York and Chicago to the Canadian capital of Ottawa, on both the Canadian Pacific and Amtracks respectively. Paris Gard Du Nord, Austerlitz, Est and Gard De Lyon, majestic Victorian emporiums of Je Ni Se Quoi, and the gateways across the continent to the Spanish, Italian and Swiss borders, a far cry from our beloved Newton Health station in torrential rain, or indeed the all night visuals on platform 4 at Crewe.
Middleton, like many towns prior to the growth in private transport, has had a rich and interesting transport history. On the 4th July 1839, The Manchester and Leeds Railway Company built a line through Middleton Junction to Littleborough from the terminus at Oldham Road, Manchester. This was a very significant development at the time and revolutionalised transport and travel, in that the main route prior to the arrival of the railways was the Rochdale Canal that had been operating since 1804, indeed, a much slower mode of transport. In December 1853 the station at Newton Heath was opened while Moston station was opened in 1872, both stations where situated on the route which was later to be known as the Calder Valley line. The Calder Valley line eventually traversed the Yorkshire border to Hebden Bridge and later Normanton crossing the watershed rising to no more than 537 ft above sea level although the route did require the boring of summit tunnel, a major feat of engineering for the time. The first branch line was built from Blue Pitts junction (sometimes called Pits and originally named Blue Pitts for Heywood), (Blue Pitts from 15th April 1841) and was later renamed Castleton (1st November 1875), (Marshall, 1969), this was at the head of a one and a half mile branch line to Heywood which opened on the 5th April 1841. In 1842 a branch to Oldham was opened, this was a two mile line, leaving the main line at a station called Oldham Junction (opened on 31st March 1841 and renamed Middleton 18th August 1842, a few month later in May 1852 it was renamed again, this time to Middleton Junction). At the top of the branch the terminus was named Oldham which sat at the head of an incline of 1-in-27 for 0.75 mile, one of the steepest in the country to be used by passenger trains and originally rope hauled, but this practice ceased in 1854.
I can recall watching an old L&Y coffee pot run down the incline, light engine, while visiting my friends aunties farm on Foxdenton Lane, in later years I would watch the heavily laden austerity locomotives bringing coal down from Chadderton Goods Depot at Broadway, crossing ferny fields in a perfusion of steam, chugging past Greenwoods Horse Riding Stables, bypassing the hamlet known as Spike Island and eventually across the iron girder bridge over the Rochdale Canal at Middleton Junction. I would often glance up timorously at the sight of these mighty and majestic steel, fire-breathing giants, as I sat quietly fishing beside the Hunt and Moscrop bywash.
An interesting point here is recorded Marshall J.(1969), one of the sons of Middleton was Charles Edward Cawley (born 7th February 1812), who was, along with Thomas Gooch, a surveyor of the East Lancashire Railway which was formed in 1843, prior to this is was a surveyor of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Cawley resigned from the East Lancashire Company on 28th May 1846 and took up a private practice of surveyors in Salford, he was later an Alderman and from 1868, the local Member of Parliament, he died on 3rd April 1877.
Dont miss the next thrilling instalment
EARLY CHILDHOOD MEMOIRS AND MIDDLETON`S LOST RAILWAYS
PART 2
THE PLOT THICKENS.
The town of Middleton was originally served by the station of that name at the junction of the Oldham branch. A short branch however, was opened directly to the town on 5th January 1857. Middleton is described by Holt, (1978), as being a rather backward place while neighbouring towns were growing. The Lords of the Manor permitted no steam engines in the mills and a race of farmer-weavers neglected their farms in attempts to follow the more profitable occupation. At the turn of the Century the population in Middleton was 25,000, an increase to 10,000 in some forty years. The Middleton branch was closed to passengers on 7th September 1964, but Middleton Junction station remained open until 3rd January 1966 when the local services between Manchester and Rochdale ceased operation (Marshall, 1970).
I do however, recall some found memories of being loaded onto the train by my father at Middleton Junction and being met by my auntie at Middleton Lancs (as it was then known) in order to attend St Peters Infant school which was situated on Albert Street, but I regret to having the rather dubious honour of appearing before Middleton Magistrates Courts (where the wine bar is now located) on a charge of trespassing on the Middleton Branch at Sandy Lane, which resulted in being given a caution by the authorities and a severe term of relegation to my bedroom. The family day trips to the seaside were a joy to behold, indeed, it was a journey that appeared to take the full day, in which to travel to far away destinations like Blackpool or Southport behind a Jubilee pacific and a ubiquitous Black 5, whilst being seated in rickety non-corridor ex LMS stock, it would be a family day out with my parents, grandmother, aunties and cousins, a journey which sadly takes less than an hour by car these days. Occasionally the family holiday was an adventurous trip to the east coast, to the exotic seaside resorts of Scarborough and Filey, when a rushed scramble to the end of platform 3 at York would often produce a tickable A4 Gresley pacific traversing the former London and North Eastern`s Main Line Route to Scotland. I can remember Bunking York shed with my cousin, amidst the familiar and time honoured cries of Oi You as we quickly scrambled for the wall in order to secure, once more, our freedom but to jot another day.
About a mile and a quarter northwest of the junction station to the Oldham branch with the main line, lay the town of Middleton that in 1842 had a population of about 13,000. The Manchester and Leeds Railway Act of 3rd August 1846 authorised a branch into the town, although the line was subsequently built, little work was actually done under the 1846 Act and fresh powers had to be obtained. According to a report on 8th March 1847, the Middleton Branch was staked out and ready for contracts, but no further progress was made. On the 24th August 1853 Hawkshaw was asked to re-survey the route. It was one of his last jobs for the then Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company (as it had then became known) before he resigned and on the 12th October that year, Sturges Meek, who had just been appointed chief engineer for the L &YR, was asked to prepare the parliamentary plans. The Lancashire and Yorkshire (Middleton Branch) Act of 1854 authorised the line and the raising of £25,000 capital for the venture.
The double-tracked branch was built by George Thomson and opened on 5th January 1857. From the Middleton Junction it descended for the whole of its six chains at 1-in-85 and 80. The new station at Middleton Junction was completed in February 1882. George Parkinson whose tender of £2,199 was accepted on 1st September 1885 rebuilt the original single-platformed station at Middleton with two new platforms. In addition on 26th September 1907 Thomas Wrigleys tender of £4,331 was accepted for the Middleton cotton shed.
Another interesting development had it have taken place, was the unbuilt branch from Middleton through to the East Lancashire Railway Companys alignment at Crumpsall. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company did obtain parliamentary powers to built this extension, which would have encompassed a goods depot at Rhodes, unfortunately
..and I suspect it would have additionally been axed by Beeching?
Middleton did however benefit from another form of rail travel that came with the Middleton (Tram) Traction Company, which had its depot located just off Green Street. In fact the original generating station still in existence at the bottom of Spring Vale, next to the entrance to the refuge site. A majestic piece of Victorian architecture that should at the very least should be given a grade 11 listed building status. We now of course are left with the station at Mills Hill that is situated on the site of the original 19th century Mills Hill station (Named Mills Hill for Oldham).
In addition to this, our fearless planning authority have now promised a new Middleton station, both of which are a long way from Middleton town centre, and it would additionally appear that we are about to be by-passed by the new Metrolink extensions, which will leave Middletons reliance upon an unworkable and equally unreliable privatised sector bus service. And the powers that be want us to give up our private transport facilities in the name of sustainable development and environmental protection? Who are they trying to kid! However, the Labour Government now talk about a new golden age of rail travel? But with two thirds of our inheritance already decimated, thanks to that forward thinking academic from the soap industry (Beeching, what a guy) and indeed the mad rush by Barbara Castle to turn most of Britain into a mass grid-locked motorway network, brought about by unworkable and insufficiently researched transport policies of the 1960`s. So possibly our relentless leaders have now come up with some longevitous plans of great grandeur? But dont hold your breath. If only!
References
Holt G. O. (1978) A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain, Volume 10, The North West, David & Charles, Newton Abbot.
Marshall J. (1969) The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, Volume 1, David & Charles, Newton Abbot.
Marshall J. (1970) The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, Volume 2, David & Charles, Newton Abbot.
Roach A. (1999) Archival Material, pers com.
PART 1
EARLY DAZE
As much as I hate to admit it now, but as a child I was a hardened trainspotter, for the uninitiated amongst us, the specie is also known as a Gricer(Gricerous Sp) or an Anorak (Anorakatus anorakatus jotus), the more state-of-the-art term being a Rail Enthusiast (Enthusiastico railus sado). On a blistery and wet Saturday afternoon or during the long hot summer school holidays, yours truly, along with a number of accomplishes, would spend our leisure hours sat on the railway station at Newton Heath, while occasionally running the gauntlet and Bunk the locomotive sheds, often to the sounds of Oi You as a disgruntled shed foreman sprinted after us, blue in the face and with the sight of pulsating veins clearly visible across his forehead.
I do, however, think that my misspent youth, in pursuit of those elusive steam locomotives, may have recently paid dividends, some thirty years down the line (no pun intended) and the echoes of gricerism are still apparently active in that the nature of my relatively recent MSc was a little number entitled An Integrated and Comparative Analysis of Rail Transport Networks in selected European Countries (its amazing what you can get away with in the name of environmental sciences!), despite the dissertation title, my research did take me to many European railway destinations, (and the pub networks of course, nothing quite like a nice unassuming bottle of claret while gently cruising down the Seine) and while in Germany and Holland a chance to relive those long lost days of steam. A more recent visit to the East Lancashire Railway at Bury encouraged me even further. Its an experience no true gricer can ever forget, the scent and smell of burning coal, oil, steam and something that flew in your eye every time you leant out of the window, I suppose it sort of gets in the blood, or at least it certainly did for me, when all those long lost halcyon days, memories came flooding back.
The area of Middleton holds some particularly found memories of steam trains, and it was really only after the infamous Dr Beeching`s axe fell in the 1960`s that signalled not only the end of steam, the closure of many branch lines, cross country services and even main line routes, like the Midland Railways Manchester Central connection, the famed Great Central, the ill-fated Waverley Route and the Somerset and Dorset (the route of the Pines Express), but also the beginning to the end of a way of life for many and indeed the end of a great era. No longer would the much feared shed master at Newton Heath shed, chase away those adolescent hardened criminals, hell-bent on jotting down all his elusive engine numbers that once occupied the depot.
I can still recall paying my last respects to steam, it was in the late sixties, on a pilgrimage to the hallowed Woodham Brothers scrap yard at Barry Island in South Wales, the graveyard of the steam engine, the rusting, once proud Pacifics sat on isolated trackwork awaiting an uncertain fate. A cosmopolitan mixture of ex Great Western, LMS, LNER and Southern Region locomotives, which at the time, I considered would be my last contact with these iron giants of the permanent way. It was only by chance, that but a few years later I stumbled across some more steam locomotives in Hungary this time, located in an overgrown goods yard, not far from Budapest, like huge grazing dinosaurs, restricted in their last eastern European stronghold and like their British counterparts, not very long from the cutters torch. Deeper forays into foreign parts, saw me photographing the mighty double headed Skoda coal trains leaving Bulgarias Black Sea Coast at Bourgas en route for the capital at Sofia, overseas travels from Montreal to New York and Chicago to the Canadian capital of Ottawa, on both the Canadian Pacific and Amtracks respectively. Paris Gard Du Nord, Austerlitz, Est and Gard De Lyon, majestic Victorian emporiums of Je Ni Se Quoi, and the gateways across the continent to the Spanish, Italian and Swiss borders, a far cry from our beloved Newton Health station in torrential rain, or indeed the all night visuals on platform 4 at Crewe.
Middleton, like many towns prior to the growth in private transport, has had a rich and interesting transport history. On the 4th July 1839, The Manchester and Leeds Railway Company built a line through Middleton Junction to Littleborough from the terminus at Oldham Road, Manchester. This was a very significant development at the time and revolutionalised transport and travel, in that the main route prior to the arrival of the railways was the Rochdale Canal that had been operating since 1804, indeed, a much slower mode of transport. In December 1853 the station at Newton Heath was opened while Moston station was opened in 1872, both stations where situated on the route which was later to be known as the Calder Valley line. The Calder Valley line eventually traversed the Yorkshire border to Hebden Bridge and later Normanton crossing the watershed rising to no more than 537 ft above sea level although the route did require the boring of summit tunnel, a major feat of engineering for the time. The first branch line was built from Blue Pitts junction (sometimes called Pits and originally named Blue Pitts for Heywood), (Blue Pitts from 15th April 1841) and was later renamed Castleton (1st November 1875), (Marshall, 1969), this was at the head of a one and a half mile branch line to Heywood which opened on the 5th April 1841. In 1842 a branch to Oldham was opened, this was a two mile line, leaving the main line at a station called Oldham Junction (opened on 31st March 1841 and renamed Middleton 18th August 1842, a few month later in May 1852 it was renamed again, this time to Middleton Junction). At the top of the branch the terminus was named Oldham which sat at the head of an incline of 1-in-27 for 0.75 mile, one of the steepest in the country to be used by passenger trains and originally rope hauled, but this practice ceased in 1854.
I can recall watching an old L&Y coffee pot run down the incline, light engine, while visiting my friends aunties farm on Foxdenton Lane, in later years I would watch the heavily laden austerity locomotives bringing coal down from Chadderton Goods Depot at Broadway, crossing ferny fields in a perfusion of steam, chugging past Greenwoods Horse Riding Stables, bypassing the hamlet known as Spike Island and eventually across the iron girder bridge over the Rochdale Canal at Middleton Junction. I would often glance up timorously at the sight of these mighty and majestic steel, fire-breathing giants, as I sat quietly fishing beside the Hunt and Moscrop bywash.
An interesting point here is recorded Marshall J.(1969), one of the sons of Middleton was Charles Edward Cawley (born 7th February 1812), who was, along with Thomas Gooch, a surveyor of the East Lancashire Railway which was formed in 1843, prior to this is was a surveyor of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Cawley resigned from the East Lancashire Company on 28th May 1846 and took up a private practice of surveyors in Salford, he was later an Alderman and from 1868, the local Member of Parliament, he died on 3rd April 1877.
Dont miss the next thrilling instalment
EARLY CHILDHOOD MEMOIRS AND MIDDLETON`S LOST RAILWAYS
PART 2
THE PLOT THICKENS.
The town of Middleton was originally served by the station of that name at the junction of the Oldham branch. A short branch however, was opened directly to the town on 5th January 1857. Middleton is described by Holt, (1978), as being a rather backward place while neighbouring towns were growing. The Lords of the Manor permitted no steam engines in the mills and a race of farmer-weavers neglected their farms in attempts to follow the more profitable occupation. At the turn of the Century the population in Middleton was 25,000, an increase to 10,000 in some forty years. The Middleton branch was closed to passengers on 7th September 1964, but Middleton Junction station remained open until 3rd January 1966 when the local services between Manchester and Rochdale ceased operation (Marshall, 1970).
I do however, recall some found memories of being loaded onto the train by my father at Middleton Junction and being met by my auntie at Middleton Lancs (as it was then known) in order to attend St Peters Infant school which was situated on Albert Street, but I regret to having the rather dubious honour of appearing before Middleton Magistrates Courts (where the wine bar is now located) on a charge of trespassing on the Middleton Branch at Sandy Lane, which resulted in being given a caution by the authorities and a severe term of relegation to my bedroom. The family day trips to the seaside were a joy to behold, indeed, it was a journey that appeared to take the full day, in which to travel to far away destinations like Blackpool or Southport behind a Jubilee pacific and a ubiquitous Black 5, whilst being seated in rickety non-corridor ex LMS stock, it would be a family day out with my parents, grandmother, aunties and cousins, a journey which sadly takes less than an hour by car these days. Occasionally the family holiday was an adventurous trip to the east coast, to the exotic seaside resorts of Scarborough and Filey, when a rushed scramble to the end of platform 3 at York would often produce a tickable A4 Gresley pacific traversing the former London and North Eastern`s Main Line Route to Scotland. I can remember Bunking York shed with my cousin, amidst the familiar and time honoured cries of Oi You as we quickly scrambled for the wall in order to secure, once more, our freedom but to jot another day.
About a mile and a quarter northwest of the junction station to the Oldham branch with the main line, lay the town of Middleton that in 1842 had a population of about 13,000. The Manchester and Leeds Railway Act of 3rd August 1846 authorised a branch into the town, although the line was subsequently built, little work was actually done under the 1846 Act and fresh powers had to be obtained. According to a report on 8th March 1847, the Middleton Branch was staked out and ready for contracts, but no further progress was made. On the 24th August 1853 Hawkshaw was asked to re-survey the route. It was one of his last jobs for the then Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company (as it had then became known) before he resigned and on the 12th October that year, Sturges Meek, who had just been appointed chief engineer for the L &YR, was asked to prepare the parliamentary plans. The Lancashire and Yorkshire (Middleton Branch) Act of 1854 authorised the line and the raising of £25,000 capital for the venture.
The double-tracked branch was built by George Thomson and opened on 5th January 1857. From the Middleton Junction it descended for the whole of its six chains at 1-in-85 and 80. The new station at Middleton Junction was completed in February 1882. George Parkinson whose tender of £2,199 was accepted on 1st September 1885 rebuilt the original single-platformed station at Middleton with two new platforms. In addition on 26th September 1907 Thomas Wrigleys tender of £4,331 was accepted for the Middleton cotton shed.
Another interesting development had it have taken place, was the unbuilt branch from Middleton through to the East Lancashire Railway Companys alignment at Crumpsall. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company did obtain parliamentary powers to built this extension, which would have encompassed a goods depot at Rhodes, unfortunately
..and I suspect it would have additionally been axed by Beeching?
Middleton did however benefit from another form of rail travel that came with the Middleton (Tram) Traction Company, which had its depot located just off Green Street. In fact the original generating station still in existence at the bottom of Spring Vale, next to the entrance to the refuge site. A majestic piece of Victorian architecture that should at the very least should be given a grade 11 listed building status. We now of course are left with the station at Mills Hill that is situated on the site of the original 19th century Mills Hill station (Named Mills Hill for Oldham).
In addition to this, our fearless planning authority have now promised a new Middleton station, both of which are a long way from Middleton town centre, and it would additionally appear that we are about to be by-passed by the new Metrolink extensions, which will leave Middletons reliance upon an unworkable and equally unreliable privatised sector bus service. And the powers that be want us to give up our private transport facilities in the name of sustainable development and environmental protection? Who are they trying to kid! However, the Labour Government now talk about a new golden age of rail travel? But with two thirds of our inheritance already decimated, thanks to that forward thinking academic from the soap industry (Beeching, what a guy) and indeed the mad rush by Barbara Castle to turn most of Britain into a mass grid-locked motorway network, brought about by unworkable and insufficiently researched transport policies of the 1960`s. So possibly our relentless leaders have now come up with some longevitous plans of great grandeur? But dont hold your breath. If only!
References
Holt G. O. (1978) A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain, Volume 10, The North West, David & Charles, Newton Abbot.
Marshall J. (1969) The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, Volume 1, David & Charles, Newton Abbot.
Marshall J. (1970) The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, Volume 2, David & Charles, Newton Abbot.
Roach A. (1999) Archival Material, pers com.