Oldham Loop Line Tour, 29 September 2009

Network Rail Sectional Appendix route designation NW7019; Down direction is from Thorpes Bridge Junction to Rochdale East Junction.

Engineers' Line Reference (ELR) MPR2 Thorpes Bridge Junction to Werneth Junction; datum Manchester Victoria.

Engineers' Line Reference (ELR) MPR3 Werneth Junction to Rochdale East Junction; datum Manchester Victoria.

Signalling Record Society RailRef LY003

This tour was carried out by road during the last Sunday morning prior to closure of the line for conversion to Manchester Metro. The objective of the tour was to record something of the line's infrastructure - stations, bridges, signalling - whilst it was still in use. For once the weather was fine. I left home early and the first picture was taken at 07:30; and the last at 14:31.

At all locations there was evidence of past neglect of the infrastructure, partially from Sir Peter Parker's “Crumbling Edges of Quality” in BR days, division of responsibility between BR and the PTE who had been given the responsibility of funding much of the provision of facilities, and finally the split at privatisation whereby the train operator leased the minimum amount essential for their business and ignored the rest. Railtrack did spend some money in catching up arrears of work but the PTE areas seem to have missed out on this because of the PTE responsibility to fund the work. Yes, the PTEs did spend some money but the effect here was largely to 'tart up' the decay rather than really make the premises into a pleasant environment. As ever, subsequent maintenance of the 'tarted up' premises was neglected, allowing vegetation to take over and add to the overall impression of neglect. This will be evident from some of the pictures! Network Rail followed the party line and seem to have made little difference beyond plastic windows in the signal boxes.

The change from industrial to residential use of land was also evident at a number of locations and had led to disappearance of some bridges as evidenced by missing numbers in the sequence and reconstruction of others for pedestrian only use. Of course, some bridge numbers may have been present (such as those over streams and culverts) but omitted from the records inspected.

The tour has been split across several pages as the large number of pictures could otherwise give rise to unaccceptable page download times. Click on the links below to dive in.

I started at Dean Lane and went via Oldham to Rochdale visiting all the stations and all the publicly accessible bridges I could along the way. My start point for the list of locations was a mix of the Railway Track Diagrams (Quail, volume 4) and the Route Learning Diagrams of First North Western. Coordinates are from Google Earth. This gave an infrastructure list to target and the list has been added to post visit. Links are provided to the picture pages.

Mileage	Coordinates	Location	Comments
2m20c	N53.502822 W2.193454	Thorpes Bridge Junction	approximate middle of junction points and crossings
2m21c	N53.502837 W2.193212 estimated	Siding connection	to Quick Mix Concrete Co, up side, included in Quail 1990 but gone by date of survey.
2m26c	N53.503117 W2.192288	Siding connection	to Newton Heath TMD, down side.
2m30c	N53.503308 W2.190403	Signal MN904	up line.
	N53.504082 W2.184656	Dean Street overbridge	bridge no.2
2m54c	N53.504215 W2.183724	Dean Lane station	missing bridge no.3 was probably the station footbridge.
	N53.504276 W2.183299	Signals MN903 & MN901	MN903 down line, MN901 up line to down line or GMC siding.
2m58c	N53.504409 W2.182156	Trailing Crossover
	N53.504505 W2.181457	Reliance Street overbridge	bridge no.4
2m62c	N53.504537 W2.181287	Dean Lane Yard entrance	yard occupied by Greater Manchester Waste plc (GMC Siding).
	N53.504646 W2.180725	MN906 signal	from GMC siding to up line
	N53.504831 W2.179157	Subway	bridge no.5, site of
	N53.505250 W2.177452	MN905 signal	from GMC siding to down line
2m78c	N53.505302 W2.176835	Dean Lane Yard exit
	N53.505340 W2.176586	Morton Street overbridge	bridge no.6
	N53.505693 W2.175092	Mill Lane overbridge	bridge no.7
	N53.505803 W2.174632	Mill Street overbridge	bridge no.8
	N53.506305 W2.172825	Footbridge	bridge no.9, wide enough to have been a road bridge
	N53.506901 W2.170997 presumed	MN907BR signal	down line in front of bridge 10.
	N53.506972 W2.170704	overbridge	bridge no.10, access to Lancaster Sports & Social Club and other sports facilities
	N53.507152 W2.170213	Broadway overbridge A663	bridge no.11
	N53.507765 W2.168698	MN907 signal	down line in front of bridge 12.
	N53.507790 W2.168562	Hardman Street overbridge	bridge no.12. Blocked off to motor traffic.
	N53.508084 W2.167840	Hulton Street overbridge	bridge no.13
	N53.508272 W2.167417	Aqueduct	bridge no.13A
	N53.508804 W2.166263	subway	bridge no.14
3m51c	N53.510341 W2.163372	Hardman Lane underbridge	bridge no.15
	N53.510409 W2.163183	MN908 signal	platform starting, up line
3m54c	N53.510671 W2.162807	Failsworth station	station subway N53.510549 W2.163021 was probably bridge no.16
	N53.511527 W2.161345	Grimshaw Street underbridge	bridge no.17. Pedestrian only.
3m70c	N53.512771 W2.159203	Greaves Bridge underbridge	bridge no.18. Pedestrian only.
	N53.513589 W2.157799	Rochdale Canal underbridge	bridge no.20
	N53.515088 W2.155207	Wrigley Head subway	bridge no.21
	N53.515339 W2.154865	MN909 signal	on down line
	N53.519625 W2.147729	Hudson Street underbridge	bridge no.24
4m49c	N53.520042 W2.147251	Hollinwood station	station subway N53.520250 W2.147049 is bridge no.25
4m52c	N53.520323 W2.146837 presumed	Hollinwood signal box	site of on up side
	N53.520723 W2.146655	Bower Lane underbridge B6393	bridge no.26, modern and much extended to include ..
	N53.521057 W2.146412	M60 underbridge	bridge no.26
	N53.522033 W2.145844	MN910 signal	on up line
	N53.523940 W2.145549	MN911 signal	on down line
	N53.524754 W2.145512	Drury Lane underbridge B6189	bridge no.27
	N53.526964 W2.145101	Boiler Works underbridge	bridge no.28
	N53.529613 W2.143233	Stanley Road underbridge	bridge no.29
	N53.530896 W2.142497	Washbrook underbridge B6191	bridge no.30
	N53.533243 W2.142035	MN913 signal	down line
5m44c	N W	Signalling boundary	Manchester North handover to Oldham on down line.
5m70c	N53.537597 W2.138157	Block Lane underbridge	bridge no.32 (5m69c to 5m71c)
5m78¾c	N53.538493 W2.136169	Jammy Lane underbridge	bridge no.33
	N53.538989 W2.134738	Suthers Street underbridge	bridge no.34
	N53.539432 W2.132542	Platts Reservoir underbridge	bridge no.35
6m15c	N53.539387 W2.131899 estimated	Werneth Junction	change of ELR
	N53.539074 W2.129603	Featherstall Road South overbridge A6048	bridge no.10
	N53.538955 W2.129059 estimated	MN912 signal	up line in front of bridge no.10
6m28c	N53.538839 W2.127911	Oldham Werneth station
	N53.538693 W2.126751	OM19 signal	down line in front of tunnel portal
6m31c	N53.538653 W2.126732	Werneth Tunnel portal
6m53c	N53.537674 W2.120469	Werneth Tunnel portal
6m60c	N53.537372 W2.118533	Central Tunnel portal
7m00c	N53.537400 W2.112376	Central Tunnel portal
7m01c	N W	Signalling boundary	Oldham handover to Manchester North on up line.
7m01c	N53.537402 W2.112284	OM16 signal	up line
7m05c	N53.537770 W2.110807	OM21 signal	down line
7m07c	N53.537884 W2.110391	Oldham Central station
	N53.538020 W2.109950	Clegg Street overbridge	bridge no.18
7m16c	N53.538971 W2.107637	Trailing crossover
7m19c	N53.539228 W2.107058	Waterloo Street underbridge	bridge no.19
7m21c	N53.539274 W2.106657	Oldham (Mumps) signal box	on up side
	N53.539957 W2.105161	Footbridge	bridge no.20
	N53.540322 W2.103869	OM18 & OM20 signals	OM18 on up line, OM20 down line to up line.
7m40c	N53.541007 W2.102158	Oldham Mumps station
	N53.541050 W2.102293	Station Subway	bridge no.22, under down line only
	N W	underbridge	bridge no.23
	N53.541995 W2.101334	OM23 signal	on down line
	N53.542391 W2.101131	Mumps Roundabout underbridge A62	bridge no.24
	N53.542811 W2.101179	Mumps Roundabout pedestrian subway A62
	N53.543189 W2.101155	Mumps Roundabout underbridge A62	bridge no.25
	N53.543440 W2.101120	Signal Gantry	removed before survey but shown on large scale OS map
	N53.543972 W2.100989	Subway	bridge no.26
	N53.546939 W2.101326	Shaw Road overbridge B6194	bridge no.27
8m09c	N53.549777 W2.101623	Derker station
	N53.550169 W2.101646	Yates Street overbridge	bridge no.28
	N53.550294 W2.101605	OM23 signal	up line in front of Yates Street bridge
	N53.552892 W2.101752	Holyrood Street overbridge	bridge no.29
8m38c	N53.553784 W2.101393 estimated	Royton station
8m38c	N53.554555 W2.100974 estimated	Royton Junction
8m66c	N53.557400 W2.097736	Meek Street Bridges	Level crossing (in 1990) had been replaced by access bridge and Footbridge by time of survey
9m11c	N53.559330 W2.095676	Level crossing	Footpath.
	N53.561597 W2.093981	stream underbridge
	N53.563833 W2.092811	stream underbridge
	N53.564005 W2.092732	Cop Road overbridge	bridge no.33
	N53.565936 W2.091624	Old Bank Farm overbridge	bridge no.34
	N53.567640 W2.090359	stream underbridge	bridge no.35
9m40c	N53.568226 W2.090076	SW1 signal	semaphore down distant
9m41c	N53.568415 W2.089902	Footpath level crossing
	N53.573078 W2.089213	SW	up advanced starting
9m73c	N53.574272 W2.089409	Wild Street Subway	bridge no.36 (9m72c-9m75c but it doesn't look like that on site)
	N53.573120 W2.089631	SW2 signal	semaphore down home
10m04c	N53.576669 W2.089652	Shaw Station signal box	on down side
10m05c	N53.576727 W2.089584	Beal Lane level crossing
	N53.576772 W2.089584	Footbridge	bridge no.37
	N53.576831 W2.089531	SW19 signal	semaphore up starting
10m10c	N53.577176 W2.089603	Shaw & Crompton station
10m14c	N53.577731 W2.089561	Trailing crossover
10m23c	N53.579521 W2.089388	Start of single line	former up line is used.
	N53.581154 W2.089235	Linney Lane overbridge	bridge no.42
	N53.581338 W2.089165 estimated	SW21 signal	up line in front of bridge no.42
	N53.584752 W2.089852	Milnrow Road overbridge A663	bridge no.43
10m59c	N53.585915 W2.090395	Bridge Street Footbridge	bridge no.44
	N53.587775 W2.089969	SW22 signal	up direction
	N53.592007 W2.088420	underbridge	River Beal
	N53.593495 W2.088097	Milnrow Road overbridge A663	bridge no.48
11m32c	N53.595357 W2.088175	Jubilee level crossing	leads to Jubilee Fulling Mill (now derelict) and Jubilee House
	N53.598110 W2.089661	underbridge	accommodation, Meadowside Farm
	N53.599728 W2.091883	Two Bridges Road overbridge	bridge no.53
	N53.599951 W2.092326	Stream underbridge
11m64c	N53.600791 W2.094670	New Hey station	L&Y Cotton Warehouse is at N53.600376 W2.094172, now part of Coral Mill. Bridge 54 was probably the station footbridge.
	N53.601027 W2.095735	Huddersfield Road overbridge	bridge no.55
	N53.601974 W2.103069	Newhey Road overbridge	bridge no.57
	N53.602594 W2.104724	overbridge	bridge no.58
	N53.603223 W2.105959	M62 slip road over bridge	bridge no.58a
12m31c	N53.603499 W2.106333	M62 over bridge	bridge no.58b
	N53.604766 W2.107842	Ladyhouse Lane overbridge
	N53.606036 W2.109287	River Beal underbridge
12m69c	N53.608044 W2.111999	Milnrow station
	N53.608419 W2.112682	Harbour Lane North overbridge	bridge no.64
	N53.608702 W2.113365	Elizabethan Way overbridge A640
	N53.609587 W2.116142	Buckley Hill Lane overbridge	Bridge no.65
	N53.610147 W2.118954	Footbridge	bridge no.66
	N53.611780 W2.127347	Stream underbridge
	N53.612238 W2.129713	Rochdale Canal underbridge	wrongly marked in error as bridge no.20 on FNW route diagram
	N53.612641 W2.131915	RE29 signal	down direction, immediately before crossing Queensway bridge
	N53.612711 W2.132118	Queensway underbridge A664
13m79c	N53.614049 W2.139074	Milnrow Road underbridge A640	bridge no.73
	N53.614079 W2.141578	RE28 signal	down direction.
14m27c	N53.612823 W2.146838	Rochdale East Junction	line enters the Manchester & Normanton line in the up direction, underbridge beneath points.
10m62c	N53.612823 W2.146838	Milnrow Bridge underbridge A640.

The locations and a few other useful ones are also pinpointed in a Google Earth data file.

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