Wilbraham Road 1964 Blues Show

[Gathursty]

BBC Radio 2 have done a broadcast recalling a famous show recorded on TV featuring several stars of blues music such as Muddy Waters at Manchester's former station Wilbraham Road. Anyone on this forum lucky enough to have been there or know anyone who was there/involved in it?

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03dvhq5

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

BBC Radio 2 have done a broadcast recalling a famous show recorded on TV featuring several stars of blues music such as Muddy Waters at Manchester's former station Wilbraham Road. Anyone on this forum lucky enough to have been there or know anyone who was there/involved in it?

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03dvhq5

If this was the one in 1964 that had Sister Rosetta Tharpe and also Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee playing on the same bill, then I was there on a wet day, as someone in our year at Manchester University whose parent was able to get admission for five of us to the event did so. It was great to see so many of our legends in live action.

 

[Taunton]

The service stopping here, from Guide Bridge round to Manchester Central, must have closed in the 1950s. The station was actually on Alexander Road; the one on Wilbraham Road itself was called Chorlton, if I am not mistaken. The tracks however were still in use for the Harwich-Liverpool train, among others, at the time of this show.

Rather like the Edinburgh South Suburban line, the scope for rail inner-suburban peripheral routes competing with high frequency bus routes direct to the centre is very limited.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The Fallowfield Loop line was constructed in two sections in 1891 and 1892 by the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway. From a passenger train perspective, after leaving Manchester Central railway station, After leaving the line towards Liverpool, its first station was that of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, the site of which is now used by the stop of the Manchester Metrolink system. The next stops onward from there were Wilbraham Road (known as Alexandra Road until 1923), Fallowfield, Levenshulme South and Hyde Road. It then joined the line to Guide Bridge at the station of Fairfield where it had two branch-line platforms amongst the six platforms at that station. Final closure of passenger services was in 1958.

The Reddish EMU depot, built in 1954, was situated on the loop line.This depot was to serve the EM1 and EM2 classes of locomotive and the Class 506 EMU. It was eventually totally cleared and the site was used for housing.

The trials of the proposed light rail system that eventually was to become the Manchester Metrolink took place in March 1987 on a short stretch of this line just north of the Hyde Road station where passengers with specially issued celebratory tickets were allowed to make the ride on the line. My wife and two of my sons travelled with me on the first day of these trials. The trials used a borrowed DLR unit and temporary OHLE was installed to facilitate these trials.

 

[Taunton]

The old LNER ordered (although they were delivered to BR) 100 3-car 1500v suburban electric sets, for use on the lines from London Liverpool Street, and also Manchester to Hadfield. 92 went to London and 8 to Manchester. There were also initial proposals for the 1500v line at Manchester to be extended round this loop line to Manchester Central, presumably at a reasonable suburban frequency. As 6 of the 8 Manchester sets were in use daily at peak hours, one was generally on overhaul, and one was spare, it's not apparent where this original plan intended to get the rolling stock from.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The old LNER ordered (although they were delivered to BR) 100 3-car 1500v suburban electric sets, for use on the lines from London Liverpool Street, and also Manchester to Hadfield. 92 went to London and 8 to Manchester. There were also initial proposals for the 1500v line at Manchester to be extended round this loop line to Manchester Central, presumably at a reasonable suburban frequency. As 6 of the 8 Manchester sets were in use daily at peak hours, one was generally on overhaul, and one was spare, it's not apparent where this original plan intended to get the rolling stock from.

May I be so bold as to offer a clarification on the EMU classification shown in your posting. The 92 three-car set Class 306 EMU operated on the newly-electrified lines between Shenfield and London Liverpool Street.

The 8 three-car set Class 506 EMU operated on the Woodhead line on local services between Manchester and Hadfield/Glossop.

 

[Taunton]

Indeed. Although to be even bolder the Liverpool Street trains were never classified as such when they were on 1500v.

I do wonder why they bothered to change. It was said that ac electrification needed less lineside substations, but this was at the expense of 92 trains (in fact, many hundreds on the overall GE lines) carrying round their own substations with them.

 

[lord rathmore]

The station was Wilbraham Road and was closed about 1960 I
think. Anyhow my brother was there when they filmed, he says he saw Muddy Waters arriving with some other musicians but he couldn't blag his way on to the platform. In 1964 there was still the occasional freight on that line - two years earlier I was chuffed to bits seeing 61011 Waterbuck on an excursion followed by an O4 on a trainload of logs.

 

[Taunton]

I understand the ex-Great Central N5 0-6-2T locos were used on the local service from Guide Bridge round to Manchester Central to the end.

The last passenger service was the daily through Harwich to Liverpool Central service, which presumably must have changed locos at both Guide Bridge and Manchester Central, and which was cut back in the early 1960s to Manchester Piccadilly. A through dmu from the CLC Manchester to Liverpool line then ran round to Guide Bridge to continue this connection, for a while, possibly others have more detail.