Big Accident ......

..... at Haydock Island.

What a surprise!

I remember the car hanging over the bridge there a few years ago.

Going back to mid 90's....When the IRA threat was at one of its peaks... I was part of a security detail working night shifts for about a month... What was we doing.?? Observing and regularly checking the stations of the M6 motorway where it crossed the A580.... To take this junction out was considered at the time to be a disaster. North South East and West brought to a standstill. Luckily it didn't happen. Can you imagine the consequences if it ever occurred !!

Nice story, bb.

I shudder to think what would happen if it happened then or now.

You were probably one of them bobbies who hung about in our garage, chatting up the staff and drinking free coffee all night !

One of them mega bombs like the IRA Manchester bomb, if that had been placed under the M6 at Haydock Island, then bang



IRA Manchester Bomb

A 'mega' bomb wouldn't have much effect. It would have to be a 'super-hyper'- mega bomb do shift them concrete stanchions. The Manchester mega-bomb broke a lot of glass.

I nearly was in Manchester the day that bomb went off, but I went to Bolton instead, and I was sat on Bolton train station when all the departure and arrival screens changed, and all trains to Manchester were cancelled and only the Wigan train I was waiting for and another train were arriving, all other arrivals were cancelled, and as that news was sinking in, and folk were starting murmuring and making phone calls, a train pulled into the station which should have been going to Manchester Victoria, and the tannoy announced ........

"The train approaching platforms 1, 2, 3 and 4 is coming in sideways"

Seriously though the tannoy announced that the service was terminating at this station, and would folk alight from the train and await further information, and he just kept repeating this same request, because the folk on the train wouldn't get off, and then a woman said "a bomb has gone off in Manchester" and at that the murmuring turned a bit more panicky, and then me train to Wigan arrived, the last to Wigan

Tonker:

"It would have to be a 'super-hyper'- mega bomb do shift them concrete stanchions"

I would agree with that, it would take a bloody big bomb to damage those concrete supports, but what about the motorway decking, because most of the blast from the Manchester bomb went upwards, so would the motorway decking have had to be replaced if a bomb the size of the Manchester bomb have gone off under it ?

The motorway decking is ferro-concrete supported on steel girders. The force of the blast will go the easiest direction. In Manchester, the easiest direction must have been upwards whereas, at Haydock Island bridge, it would be sideways.

One or two interesting snippets there chaps No Tonks.. We were in an unmarked car haunting the nearby lay-bys... Not the ones where the "strange folk," met

One or two interesting snippets there chaps

agree, thanks to Fred dibnah for the information.