Walking our forgotten railway line

I continue to be a fan of “near history” which many traditionalists would rubbish as not history at all.  

After all so the argument goes how can you call any event which is only 20 years old history?

The passage of time is too short to call up all the many ways that the event has impacted on us and so no true perspective is possible.  All of which is true, but I shall proceed anyway.

Here is a selection of pictures taken by Andy Robertson who took a stroll down our disused railway line in February 1993. 

Chorlton-cum-Hardy station closed in 1969* after serving the community for 89 years and while freight trains continued to use the line for another twenty years, finally in 1989 the tracks were lifted and that pretty much was that.

A little of what it had once been are still visible from the signalling lights to the old platform.

And this again is why these pictures of our near history are so fascinating because I have never realized that the platforms were so far down the track.

Ah I hear you mumble get a life, but it is that little bit of detail that I like.  After all few of us will have used the old station, and it is 44 years since the last train set off for the city centre which means that anyone who travelled the line will have to pull out memories which are over 50 years in the past.

All of which is an appropriate moment to mention Disused Stations Site Record by Paul Wright & Bevan Price http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/chorlton_cum_hardy/index.shtml It is a wonderful record of the stations and railway lines around Manchester which have long since vanished.

Some, like our own line have been pressed back into service and now provide a quick and comfortable way of getting into the heart of the city.

I have to confess that every time I travel on the tram I get a little sense of history which may be romantic tosh but still brings me just a tad closer to the past that I often write about.

And also neatly returns me to Andy’s pictures which nicely span the time between the closure of the station in 1969 and the opening of the Metro link in 2011.

* http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20railways

Pictures; from the collection of Andy Robertson