Wigan Album

Stephen, I don't remember this incident. What caused the train to derail?

the cause was road spread under the train.the weight of the train kept pushing causing the pile up of wagons

As you know Ste, only Springs Branch drivers had the knack of placing wagons the correct way for unloading.

how right you are tom anything to get an early dart

I was a member of the breakdown gang that had to clear the mess up. George made us a few bob that day.

The date of the derailment was 28th May 1985. A Wednesday. The driver was George Fairclough and the Guard was Gordon Wilkinson. I know because I was the Secondman on it when it happened. What a lot of people who remember the incident will not know is that they tried to blame George saying that he was speeding. We knew that he wasn't speeding as we had stopped between the token station to offer Tommy Sutch a lift as he was walking down the line to work. Tommy declined as he was a little early so George simply topok the brake off and due to the steep falling gradient the train started to roll. We were doing 15 MPH when it came off. Obviously we could not say anything about stopping to pick up Tommy. Another little story on that day is that the Area Manager criticised the Guard Gordon for riding on the loco and not in the brake van. The van was smashed to peices and Gordy would definately have been killed. Great to see all the old faces again. keep the photos coming.

I remeber this incident. I was an apprentice at the branch at the time, I have a few photo's of this incident myself. Pity the place shut.

colin mitchinson i was the shunter on that day with glyn evens he was the taper.can you remameber we played football in london and i got sent off.

Regarding the date of this incident, the date put forward by Colin of 28th May 1985 was actually a Tuesday, not a Wednesday. Unless there were two almost identical incidents, this was actually 1983. I photographed the wreckage soon after it happend on 1st June 1983. The loco involved was 47182.