Wigan Album

This was the Pemberton loop line from Hindley, here the iron bridge passes over the Springs Branch line that went to Central Wagon works then on to Kirkless at Newsprings.

My brother worked at Springs Branch. I was going to ask if that Is that the bridge at the top of Taylor's Lane in Spring View but I don't think it is.

Sorry I should have said TO Hindley, Park Web works with the chimney smoking on the left.

Viewing that bridge was one of my earliest memories from when I was about four years old, I had not yet started school, and I was being taken to the Clinic, which was at the rear of Ince Town Hall, and has we were walking over the railway bridge, which over looked the old Lower Ince Railway Station, in the distance there was a freight train crossing that bridge, which was hauled by a steam locomotive, and it consisted of what looked to be empty coal wagons, and it was making loud clanging noises has it crossed the bridge, and this was on the Pemberton Loop Line, so it was not going to the Wagon Works.

I never forgot that sight, and years later I was working in the Ince area, and whilst making conversation, I would mention a large steel arched bridge, which was the top bridge of what had been a collection of railway lines crossing over each other, has viewed from Ince Green Lane, and for years no bugger in Ince could remember it, and this was starting in the 1980s, I viewed the bridge in the early 1960s, and on the map I had of the time from the late 1960s, it showed the collection of railway lines crossing each other, but it was not detailed enough to say which line was which.

There was one woman on the Wigan World Message Boards who remembered it, and she told me that it was on the Pemberton Loop Line, and that was about 2010, so for nye on 30yrs those dozy Incers, couldn't remember it, and I was thinking had I imagined it, and then it was not that long ago that Timepix issued pictures of that bridge, and one of them is the photo on this page, and viewing those pictures of that bridge, was for me, like being able to scratch a long and painful itch, so thank you Timepix.