Bryn station

Does anyone know when Bryn station was altered the way it is today?. By altered I mean the lifting of the former freight lines that used to run opposite the main Wigan-Liverpool lines that was situated behind where the former waiting shelters used to be, not to mention the altering of the steps down to the Liverpool direction platform. Most people who aren't old enough to remember or originally from the area would never have thought there was once a separate line where the trees and overgrown grass is now behind the wire fence. I'm not old enough to remember the way it was, but it's been the way it is now since at least the early 80s. There are photos from the 60s I've seen with the former lines and steps running down towards the platform instead of going diagonally across for prams and wheelchairs. It's funny we never needed pram and disabled accessibility back in those days, people just got on with it, now you need ramps to get onto the train.

I assuming it was around the mid 70s when they filled in the track bed and altered the steps?.

I am going back to the late 40s, Old stone Buildings, waiting room, and ticket office. Steep slope to the platform for trains to Wigan. Steps down to the opposite platform. Also pathway along the top of banking from Bryn Station to St Peter's Church in Bryn Road.

And only one footpath over the bridge well on the side going to Ashton it was only a curbstone and 9" of rough ground, the bridge must have been widened when they took the two railway lines up you must remember it Alan85

Yes, Dougie, I remember it well. only the foolhardy and us stupid kids would cross on that side of the bridge. The widening took place after I had left Bryn.

ashtonman01

I have had a look at the pictures on here of the old Bryn Station and Garswood Hall Colliery, and some of the comments accompanying those pictures are wildly inaccurate, whilst other comments are probably true, but two pictures stand out to give an indication as to when the two slow lines through Bryn Station were 'lifted' the first picture is of a steam loco and brake van in between Bryn Station (WiganRoad) Bridge and the Bryn Road Bridge, and as can be seen to the side of the railway tracks, the slow lines had been lifted by this time, so first thing is that this picture was taken before August 1968 when the last steam train ran for British Rail, and in the background of the picture the remains of Garswood Hall colliery are being demolished, and a few comments agree that this would have been in 1964 so the track had already been lifted by 1964 and looking at the vegetation at where the lines would have been located, it looks like they had been lifted a few years before that time.



The second picture appears to have been taken in the same time frame as the first picture, and taken from the same place, but with the camera pointing to the left of the first picture, this shows the old St Peters Church and the remains of Garswood Hall Colliery in the same picture, so if you agree that Garswod Hall Colliery was being dismantled in 1964 and you found out when the old St Peters Church burned down, which was apparently after 1961 then you can say that the pictures were taken before St Peters burned down, and before 1968 which gives the 1964 date for the pictures, a more than likely probability, so we know that the tracks had been lifted by 1964 and looking at the vegetation I would say they were probably lifted between three and five years before the picture was taken.



Garswood Hall Colliery closed in 1958 and that colliery was connected to the slow lines in question, so I would surmise that the tracks were lifted not long after the colliery closed in 1958 because there was no longer any need for those railway lines, and looking at the vegetation on the pictures of where the lines were located in 1964 I am going to give a date of circa 1960 when those lines were lifted ....

Tommy, the second picture interests me more. On the top left, you can see the pathway leading to St Peter's Church.

I never knew the lines were lifted that early in the 60s - before my time it it was. There's a photo of Bryn station dated the 1960s on Wikipedia if you search for Bryn station, and the photo shows those lines present. So when was the station itself altered with the different style of steps leading down to the Liverpool platform?. I would guess the 70s. In the photos during the 60s the steps went straight down.