Salford Station ............ the one you miss

It’s the one you miss. Salford Central Station is on New Bailey Street and is set back between two railway viaducts.

So travelling out of Manchester into Salford even on foot it was not the most visible of places.  

Moreover the actual entrance seemed to retreat away from the road and so apart from the station’s name on the wooden canopy there was  really only the sign above the entrance announcing the way “To the ticket office” and the railway timetables which gave a clue as to what was behind the maroon door.

But all that has changed.  The viaducts have been painted and the detail highlighted, as have the pillars and the entrance is now behind a glass wall which draws you into the station itself.

It is one of our oldest stations having been opened in 1838 as the terminus of the Manchester and Bolton Railway and in 1843 the viaduct across New Bailey Street were built to connect with Victoria Station.  Only the Liverpool Road Station is older, but that closed for passengers in 1844 when Manchester Victoria was built.

Of course the purist will point to the fact that I am mixing up Manchester and Salford and treating them as one but I rather think that is being a wee bit pedantic.

The station has had many names.  For the first twenty years it was just plain Salford, was then renamed Salford (New Bailey) until 1865 when it reverted to its original name and in 1988 it was changed to Salford Central.

I suppose the fact that for a long time it was only open at peak times and is closed on Sundays does continue to make it a bit of a forgotten station.  So to bring it back I thought I would include the 1894 painting of the station by H. E. Tidmarsh from Manchester Old and New.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Manchester Old and New, William Arthur Shaw

Easter offers on the railways .............. with the LMS and Mr. Casson

This is Mr. Edwin Casson who worked on the railways.

In the early 20th century he had been at Chorlton-cum-Hardy and near the end of his career worked at one of the big railway stations in the centre of the city.

His great grandson Steve, thinks it might have been Exchanges, which the purists will instantly call me out on and point to the fact that Exchange Railway Station was in Salford.

I wonder however if instead of Exchange we are at Central Station.

Both were operated by the London Midland and Scottish Railway which had come into existence in 1923 as an amalgamation of smaller companies.

And here I readily admit that I am on the frontier of my knowledge of railway companies.

Exchange had been part of the London North Western Railway which became part of the LMS*, while Central Station was home to the Cheshire Line Committee Railway, before it too was absorbed into the LMS..**

So, what convinces me that we are at Central is the sign to the right of Mr. Casson which carries the name Cheshire Lines Railway.

But I might have missed something, and I am sure there will be a flurry of corrections heading my way.

In my defence, I will just point out that Chorlton-cum-Hardy Railway Station was like Central, part of the Cheshire Line Committee, and so it is logical to suppose he moved up the line from the branch station to the main station.  But equally as an employee of the LMS he could have found himself at Exchange.

I can however place the picture sometime between 1923 when the LMS was formed and Mr. Casson’s death in 1939.

And that just leaves me to draw attention to the East offers.

Location; a railway station

Picture; Mr.  Casson at work, circa 1923-1939, from the collection of Steve Casson

*Manchester Exchange Railway Station, Disused Stations, http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/manchester_exchange/index.shtml

**Manchester Central Railway Station, Disused Stations, http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/manchester_central/index.shtml