The weather according to the forecast is promising, for “after frost at first, areas will have a fine, mainly sunny day, with normal or slightly higher temperature”* which will gives us about 8⁰C or a little bit more.
And that I reckon is just right for a ramble in the countryside which is what we would have been planning to do on that April morning back in 1957.
This I know from a delightful poster which British Railways published in that year** advertising Special Excursions to Chinley, Edale, Hope, Bamford and Hathersage.
It is of course a journey that can no longer be made by rail, but back in 1957 our station still had another ten years before it was closed and there are quite a few people who remember making the trip into the Hope valley by train from Chorlton.
All of which makes the poster a valuable piece of history, for not only do we have the journey times for this long vanished service but also the cost. So from Chorlton it cost 4/3d for a return ticket to Hope and took just 19 minutes.
So having done the ramble the train back would have left Hope at two minutes past seven arriving back in Chorlton at about 8.10 in the evening.
It is a journey I would have loved to have made, not least because it was while in Hope recently that we decided to take up serious walking. But sadly back in 1957 I was just eight years old and living in London.
Still this little poster gives a flavour to what was on offer back then and an insight into our own railway line.
**Special Excursions to Chinley, Edale, Hope, Bamford and Hathersage, from Manchester Railway Termini, E.M.Johnson, Foxline Publishing, 1987
My brother and I took the train to Edale walked over Man Tor and into Castleton then back to Edale for the train to Chorlton. This was the early 50's and alternate weekends with the 16 bus to Stockport then to Hayfield. Happy days.
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