Locomotives of the Lancashire Central Coalfield

At Walkden, near Wigan, the Lancashire Central Collieries locomotives were based. Serving all the local mines, the little tank locos hauled wagons of coal to the large yards there for onward travel to all points. Alan Davies tells the story of the locos of the coalfield.

---

The old Bridgewater Trustees mineral railways were to become the Central Railways of the huge Manchester Collieries concern, which was formed in March 1929. The landscape with its changing, suddenly abrupt and often fierce gradients was to be a cruel one for these colliery locomotives which were worked virtually constantly to their limits. From Worsley to Linnyshaw Colliery, east of Walkden, the average gradient had been 1 in 52 with the occasional 1 in 30 stretch! The locomotives were varied but post-war included many of the Hunslet-designed Austerity, as well as a series of ex-North Staffordshire Railway locomotives. Alan Davies, in a companion volume to his previous work on Walken Yard itself, tells the story of the locomotives that were based there, were maintained and repaired there and that sometimes finished their working lives at Walkden Yard.