Local History Month – Walkden’s railway history
Evidence of passenger rail travel within Walkden dates back to 1875, where the first railway station located a short walk away from today’s station began travelling with some passengers.
This station, operated by London and North Western Railway was first opened in 1870 to support Walkden’s coal industry, but not long after, demand from locals meant that a passenger service was introduced.
The station as we now know it, was officially opened in July 1888 by Lancashire and Yorkshire railway and due to its elevated platform was known as “Walkden High Level”, whilst it’s common that the first emerging station is referred to as “Low Level” due to its ramp leading below ground level.
The line built for this station from Crows Nest Junction at Hindley, first passed through only Atherton, Walkden and Swinton and rejoined at the station which is now known as Salford Crescent.
This line also made it possible for a different route from Liverpool to Manchester, which was almost 5 miles shorter than the existing one which passed through Bolton.
These 4 tracks laid at the time of construction, now allows for the running of the Transpennine express service from Liverpool through Manchester and other areas like Halifax, Bradford, and Leeds.
As this route was opened in stages, the first stage opened in July 1887 with the first passenger service being introduced between Swinton and Manchester.
Just over a year later, stage two saw it’s opening, as the section from Swinton through Walkden to Atherton was introduced.
Finally, in July 1888, the official opening day of Walkden High level had arrived and two months later, the final section of the route was opened, from Atherton to Crows Nest Junction at Hindley.
The official opening day of the station in July 1888 saw an early morning service from Walkden leave for Manchester and due to the time, very few people were there to see the service leave the station.
However, as the day went on crowds began to form and more and more passengers and spectators came to the newly opened station to catch trains and watch them leave.
One of the most popular features brought by this new station was that there were several trains which operated on Sundays, which was a big difference to what locals were used to with the previous operators.
Almost 10 years after its official opening, Walkden station became the subject of a very pleasant story as a passenger visiting the station, known as Mrs Grundy, safely gave birth in the waiting room to a healthy baby boy.
Unfortunately, as much as this story gave locals something positive to discuss, the addition of this railway station clearly took some getting used to as there were several early fatalities that occurred in its first few years of operation.
At the turn of the century, these fatalities decreased but in 1925, the station was the subject of a mass derailment which saw over 20 carriages derailed, causing huge disruptions and taking some heavy machinery a whole day to clear the area.
Some 30 years later, plans from Richard Beeching to reshape and develop Britain’s railways came at the expense of many railway stations. This included the old Walkden low-level station and in 1954 it was closed, but luckily the High-level station remained open.
As much as things have changed since the opening of the station, the layout, which is similar to the stations at Swinton and Hindley, has largely remained the same, with the platform situated in the middle of the two tracks and the waiting room, porter’s room and lamp room remaining relatively untouched until the 1970’s, when instances of vandalism and years of neglect finally caught up with them.
These areas were mostly boarded up before the station underwent refurbishment works which included changes to the entrance as well as the freshening up of some of the interiors.
Since then, the station has again remained relatively untouched although, the importance of the journey’s delivered from this station for residents of Walkden cannot be understated.
We’re sure that plenty of Walkden residents have many fond memories of rail travel from this town and one of the more notable trips may be the regular seaside jaunts to places like Blackpool, which attracted a number of people who would board at the station.
What are your earliest memories of Walkden station?
