By Ray Clarke who was brought up in Westhoughton and now lives in America WE would wake early on a Sunday morning to the distant sounds of two steam trains.
The quiet but distinguishable noise came from the locomotives as they hauled coal wagons up the steep gradient from Bag Lane Station in Atherton to the coal depot at Chequerbent in Westhoughton.
The spent steam as it whooshed out of the chimney pots would sometimes balance giving the impression that there was only one engine. That syncopation would soon disappear.
Occasionally the load taken by one engine as it climbed the hill would cause the wheels to slip sending the engine into fast forward. This would soon return to the steady beat as the wheels regained their grip. It was a hypnotic sound as we lay in our beds in the stillness of the dawn.
Later in the day we would trek down Platt Lane to where it becomes Bag Lane at the railway line from Manchester to Southport. We would sit on the embankment waiting for the one-a-day train to travel from Manchester to Wigan. Occasionally we would be lucky and two would pass by. We spent hours waiting with pen and paper at the ready never knowing what time they were due.
We would hear the whistle of the engine as it passed through Atherton Station long before we caught sight of the train. As the pounding grew louder, we would spot a plume of white steam as it slowly rose into the air.
Our hearts would beat quicker with anticipation of the approach of the "monster". It rattled along the tracks shaking the ground as it passed and the train driver would always give a friendly wave as they drove by. We would happily return the wave knowing that he acknowledged our presence.
We would scan the engine for the number and try to remember the six digits before it passed. On rarer occasions the engine would be a "namer". This would be a name which was given to the engine, eg Flying Scotsman (although I don't recall the Flying Scotsman travelling along the Manchester to Southport line). A namer would be a bonus to us as they were quite rare.
On the passing of the train we would excitedly confirm the engine was a 4-6-4 or 2-4-2 and possessed a coffee-pot distinguishing the height of the chimney.
As the carriages skimmed by with the clickety clack of the wheels running over the joints in the rails, we would wait for the guard van to pass.
Another wave from him would start the decline in our excitement that diminished completely by the time the signal dropped down to display red.
Sitting back down on the embankment we would record what we had seen whilst drinking a bottle of corporation pop (water). We would then compare the engines we had seen before, perhaps some of which had been spotted from the high level iron footbridge which spanned the platforms of Trinity Street Station from Great Moor Street in Bolton.
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