Just look at this queue all in their Sunday best. Were they waiting for a royal visit or attending the theatre?
The bags and suitcases probably give it away. This was the queue which had formed at Bolton’s Trinity Street Station in the mid 1950s for a train to Morecambe.
During the annual wakes weeks, when the mills and all other industry in the town essentially shut down, it was the time for families to take their holidays.
Special trains were laid on to ferry thousands of Boltonians to the coast and the whole thing was run like a military operation.
It’s interesting to note the posters you can see on the wall of the station. advertising trips to Blackpool for four shillings (20p today) and Penrith excursions for 16/9.
They may have been off to the coast but there’s no shorts or T-shirts; suit and tie for the men and hats and best coats for the women were the order of the day.
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