Quote:
Originally Posted by Sprocket
Irlam's o'th' Height station was long closed when I was a lad there. It was an island platform on the embankment, accessed by a dusty and sinister looking door under the bridge. I believe it closed about 1955.
We occasionally came home from Manchester Victoria to Irlams o'th' Height via Pendlebury as a treat- I can vividly remember the custard-and-cream train with Southport ndestination boards- and the bus (57 or 77?) down Bolton Road.
It was at Pendleton Broad Street station, the next into Manchester after IotH, that I formulated my first theory. I was 3, and we were going to Southport for the day. While we were waiting for the train, I saw a locomotive waiting at a signal. The signal was down, and from my perspective it looked as though the arm rested against the chimney. The loco's smoke rose vertivcally in the still summer air. Then the signal went up, and the loco moved off, the smoke and steam trailing backwards from the chimney. So I concluded that (1) the signal stopped trains by holding the chimney, and (2) the smoke going backwards drove the train along.
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Hehe, makes you miss being too young to understand sometimes.
Just out of curiosity, wouldn't the Height be before Pendlebury when coming from Manchester Victoria? The platform of Pendleton is still there albeit shut down as far as I can tell when I ride the line.