Wigan Album

Senior Overhead line Inspector Lesley Eric Blake sat in the mess coach of the Overhead Line works train on a Sunday morning probably in the Preston area at a guess. Not often you would find Lesley in a state of such peaceful inertia, in my opinion probably the top “OHL wire man” in the country. When a GNER express was wrecked at Hatfield in 2001 when the rail shattered under it back in Railtrack days, and despite Hatfield being on another contractor’s maintenance area; LEB was the man they called for to get the OHLE back in the air. Truly, one of life’s great eccentrics. April 1989