Sixty Years Rail Around Rochdale
Richard S Greenwood MBE STORM’s archivist of many years has shared the below images from September 1959.
Scenes of the Rochdale area have been captured by Richard every 10 years in September. Let’s hope the 1969 and 1979 etc are shared for the enjoyment of railway folk.
Photo 1 Patriot number 45517 of Bank Hall shed heads the Sunday Liverpool Exchange to York express through Smithy Bridge level crossing on Sunday 6 September 1959
Photo 2 An excursion from Chesterfield to Blackpool for the Illuminations is worked by a Crab 2-6-0 number 42759 approaching Smithy Bridge in a picture taken from the signalbox steps. Sunday 9 September 1959
Photo 3 One of the Wakefield allocated B1 class 4-6-0s frequently used on excursion work, number 61017 named "Bushbuck", is at the head of another excursion to Blackpool on 6 September 1959.
Photo 4 An LMS class 2P 4-4-0 number 40684 from Bank Hall shed is seen entering Castleton station with the 3.50pm Rochdale to Wigan stopping train on 9 September 1959
Photo 5 Former Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway "A" class 0-6-0 locomotives were the usual class of locomotive used to shunt Baggs Yard at Castleton which was a depot for permanent way materials in 1959. On 9 September 1959 number
52129 is seen engaged on a shunt opposite The Directors Pub.
Photo 6 Long trains of empty coal wagons heading back to the Yorkshire pits were to be seen several times a day. Class 8F 2-8-0 number 48509 passes through Castleton station eastbound on 9 September 1959
Photo 7 There were two late afternoon expresses from Rochdale to the Lancashire Coast known as "Residentials". Here two locomotives to work these trains, Black Five number 45223 for the 4.25pm to Southport and Jubilee number 45629 "Straits Settlements" for the 4.35pm to Blackpool Central are waiting in the down loop alongside Heywood Road, Castleton to proceed to Rochdale where their trains are already in the platforms. 9 September 1959.
Photo 8 Another long train of empty coal wagons with Class 8F number 48716 has a clear road hurrying past Castleton East Junction. 9 September 1959.
Photo 9 The most eagerly awaited train by the "Spotters" was the "half past five double header" which conveyed the empty newspaper vans off the previous night's newspaper trains to Yorkshire and the North East back to Red Bank Carriage Sidings at Manchester. On 9 September 1959 the two locomotives were a Standard Five number 73058 and a
Black Five number 45102, here near Castleton Sidings signalbox.