Wigan Album

Great photo of a wonderful world fifty years ago. I was always trainspotting at North Western station but of course we saw all the trains going into and out of Wallgate too. It looks so busy with all those people on the platform -probably off to Southport for the day.

We always caught the train to Southport at Ince Station when I was a little girl, so I never went on Wallgate Station...just passed through, but a friend of mine tells me the buffet was straight out of Brief Encounter. Oh, the excitement of going to Southport on a sunny June morning, the heady smell of steam and the anticipation of The Peter Pan playground . We sat in long narrow carriages with pictures above the seats and there were leather straps to let the windows up and down, and as we passed the bone works, which stunk to high heaven, the thud-thud of windows being shut was like machine-gun fire!

The Southport 'Excursion Train'always left from the middle single track.Happy memories.

Smashing photo of a great place. used to come in here from Hindley.

My sister and I were part of those lucky people who enjoyed the Sunday train excursion to Southport, leaving us with indelible memories some 55 years later.