A Short History of Walkden Station
This page aims to give a short history of Walkden station. The information has been researched by FOWS members and is accurate to the best of our knowledge. We hope to add more detail as we learn more about the station's history: please email us at friends@walkdenstation.org.uk if you spot any errors or can help us with more information or pictures from the station's past.
The black and white photos on this page are used with the very kind permission of Tom Wray, from whose personal collection they are taken.
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The tiled map of the L&Y network at Victoria station shows the Wigan to Manchester line via Atherton. |
The present day Walkden station wasn't the first railway station to serve the town; that honour fell to the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) station opened in 1875 and located in Brindley Street, adjacent to Parr Fold Park, on what now forms part of the Salford Looplines cycle network. The LNWR station's name was changed to "Walkden Low Level" after the present station opened with the name "Walkden High Level".
The Walkden station that we see today was opened on July 2nd 1888 by LNWR's rivals the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR). The L&Y built the line from Crows Nest Junction at Hindley through Atherton, Walkden and Swinton and rejoining its network at Pendleton Junction (today's Salford Crescent), to serve the numerous collieries and growing towns along the route. As the new line also gave the L&Y a shorter route between Liverpool and Manchester, four tracks were laid (a fast and a slow line in either direction) to allow the running of what we would now call "Transpennine Expresses" from Liverpool through Manchester, Halifax and Bradford to Leeds.
The L&Y built the new line in stages, and a passenger service had been running between Swinton and Manchester for around a year before the section from Swinton through Walkden to Atherton was laid in July 1888. The final section from Atherton to Crows Nest Junction at Hindley, completing the through route from Wigan to Manchester, was opened a month later in August 1888.
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The station had a decidedly low-key opening on July 2nd 1888 when the first passenger service from Walkden High Level, consisting of six carriages, left at 5.15 am without any spectators or fanfare - probably due to the early hour and drizzling rain. The Farnworth Journal[6] noted that "decorations of any shape in honour of the event were conspicuous by their absence".
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The station's first ever passenger was James Healey, a newsagent living on Manchester Road who paid 3.5d for a 3rd class single to Manchester. 21 other passengers also boarded at Walkden for the inaugural departure to Manchester. In total 368 passengers travelled from Walkden on that first day, the majority to Wardley (now Moorside) or Atherton reflecting how people worked closer to their homes in the days before the car.
During the course of the day, many local people visited the station to watch the new trains arriving and departing. The first timetable included 14 daily departures to Manchester and 15 to Atherton. There were also 11 trains a day on Sundays, making a bold contrast with the LNWR who had refused to run Sunday services until then.
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Pictures of the Booking Office and boarded-up platform Waiting Room taken by Tom Wray in 1972 before the wood-panelling of the former was lost and the latter was demolished. |
Apart from the Waiting Room, Porters Room and Lamp Room that used to grace the platform until the 1970's, the layout and structure of the original station is much the same today as it was on opening day 120 years ago. Then, as now, the platforms were accessed by two flights of stairs with the booking office on the landing at the halfway point.
The L&Y were early adopters of the "island" design where the platform sits between the tracks so there is no need for a footbridge or subway to cross between platforms. All the stations between Swinton and Hindley shared this layout, although Walkden is the only one where the railway lines lie above rather than below their surroundings.
Local newspaper reviews[1] were very favourable to the new station, describing it as "commodious, convenient and well-furnished with the provision of ample waiting rooms". The platform canopy was painted white with blue girders ("a very pretty appearance") and the three large Waiting Rooms were decorated with black and white painted wood, looking "rather old-fashioned" according to one report[2].
Interestingly the stairs, which still render the station inaccessible to disabled or mobility-impaired passengers, were identified as a problem before the station even opened. The Farnworth Journal opined that the 14 steps to the Booking Office and the further 29 up to the platform were a drawback and that the "we are sure the public preference in such a case is for a sloping road or pathway" like the access ramps at the LNWR station. How right they were !
Adjacent to the station on Mullineux Road a large plot of land was secured for use as a Goods Yards. In October 1888 "considerable progress" had been made by the contractors Monk & Newell of Liverpool[3], and the yard was opened later the same year.
The two fast lines - removed in the 1960's - ran parallel to the slow lines on the south (Worsley) side of the station.
The Through Route To Southport
The final section of track between Atherton and Hindley was opened in August 1888 allowing the first ever through train from Walkden to Southport on August 3rd. The train was in fact an excursion organised by Atherton United Schools but when the Congregationalists of Walkden heard of the arrangement they asked that the train be stopped at Walkden to pick up their choir and friends too. With 20 carriages and 200 passengers the train must have made quite a sight for anyone around at 6.20am to see it depart. The journey to Southport took just over an hour with stops at Atherton and Wigan, and the merrymakers departed Southport at 9.30pm after a very long day out at the seaside.
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A photograph from the early days of Walkden station showing the railway bridge adorned with Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway advertising. Photograph reproduced by kind permission of Salford Local History Library. |
To judge by the number of accidents it might appear the public of Walkden had some difficulty getting used to the new railway in their midst. In fact the roll-call of casualties is more likely a reflection of the scant concern for safety in nineteenth century life.
The first fatality came within a fortnight of the line opening when a railway employee, F. Price, was working on an embankment near Walkden and a gust of wind blew him into the path of a train. He died from his injuries in hospital[4].
Before Christmas the line had claimed its second victim, that of James Leek (age 26) who died of injuries he received when he was knocked down whilst walking along the line near Walkden[5].
Tragedy struck again on 9 March 1889 when Joseph Hindley, a Point Cleaner and Lampman aged 43, was killed near the station. Hindley was oiling points after the 12.40 service from Atherton arrived and, as the train left, he walked across track some 20-30 yards in front of it. The locomotive struck him and came to a halt some 100yds later. Hindley was knocked down (though not run over) and the subsequent inquest recorded a verdict of Accidental Death with no blame attaching to driver[7].
A couple of years later on 23 February 1891 a carter name Henry Dobbs (41) was killed whilst loading timber from a railway wagon to his "lurry". His horse took fright when its halter and nosebag fell and Mr Dobbs was knocked over by the runaway horse as he tried to stop it. He died almost instantaneously and once again a verdict of Accidental Death was recorded when the inquest was held in the Ellesmere Hotel[7].
Happily there were good times as well as bad around the station, such as the time in 1897 when a passenger went into labour and gave birth in the Waiting Room. Thankfully the buildings of 1897 offered more protection and privacy than today's draughty perspex shelter !
The Twentieth Century from 1900 to 1950
The rate of accidents decreased after 1900, although the century started very badly with the mysterious death of William Turner (69), a passenger found lying on the platform with a head injury after the arrival of the last train from Manchester on Boxing Day 1900. Although no-one saw him fall, the inquest concluded that he had stumbled whilst disembarking from the train and sustained the injury that killed him[8].
In March 1905 Walkden's first Station Master, Mr Henry Matthews originally from Newton Heath, moved on to a new post at Sandhills having become a popular and well-known figure in the local community. He was replaced by E. Helliwell of Kirkdale.
A year later in 1906 another employee of the railway since its opening day, Benjamin Jerratt (52), was knocked down and killed whilst "fogging" - signalling at night with a lamp and fog signal to slow trains down on the fast line between Walkden and Moorside whilst track repairs were in progress[9].
1925 saw the most spectacular accident in the line's history, although there were no injuries when 27 goods wagons derailed during the night of March 18. All four tracks were blocked and two 35-ton cranes worked throughout the folowing day to clear the debris[10].
The particularly sad death of passenger Joseph Halpin aged just 4 occured in August 1930 when he fell from a train 3/4 mile from Walkden. It was believed he had stumbled whilst reaching across the carriage for a paper and accidentally caught the door handle[11].
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Pictures of the boarded-up platform Porters Room and station entrance taken by Tom Wray in 1972. |
Walkden Low Level was closed on 29th March 1954, and the High Level station also came under threat during the dark days of the 1960's under British Railways. The station survived, but Sunday services and the fast lines did not.
FOWS would particularly like to hear from anyone who remembers the fight to save the line in 1967.
Tom Wray's photographs of August 1972 show the station suffering the effects of vandalism and neglect. All the buildings on the platform - Waiting Room, Porters Room and Lamp Room - were boarded up and windows above the entrance were smashed.
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In the 35 years that have passed since the photos were taken, little has changed at Walkden: the platform buildings have been removed and replaced with a minimal shelter, and the platform has been artificially shortened.
[1] Farnworth Journal, 30th June 1888, 8h
[2] Farnworth Journal, 2nd June 1888, 5b
[3] Farnworth Journal, 6th October 1888, 5d
[4] Farnworth Journal, 14th July 1888, 5d
[5] Farnworth Journal, 15th December 1888, 5c
[6] Farnworth Journal, 7th July 1888, 5d
[7] Farnworth Journal, 16th March 1889, 8c
[8] Farnworth Journal, 29th December 1900, 5e
[9] Farnworth Journal, 24th August 1906, 9c
[10] Farnworth Journal, 20th March 1925, 9d
[11] Manchester Guardian, 9th August 1930, p13