The Branch Line Society

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Tarleton Branch Walk
Friday 17th November 2017

Report by Chris Totty and Paul Stewart

To follow our WLLR visit your BLN Editor suggested that, to fill the 1½ hours before the afternoon event (15 minutes away), it might be a pleasant outing to walk along the trackbed of the 1¼ miles Tarleton Halt branch from Hesketh Bank (top left on the 1920 6th Series 1" map RIGHT; Southport is off top left and Preston top right. The branch used to extend to the warehouse near the bottom of the map. The WLLR is now north east of the former station.)

So a party made up of your BLN Editor, General Secretary and scribe from Jersey set forth to find the trackbed and using a somewhat ancient OS map and the modern intricacies of Google Earth managed to discover that what appeared to be the route was, in fact, a public footpath. Leaving the Editor's car, (more later) at the WLLR the party ventured along a short lane, which ended up in a building site. An employee of the builders asked us our business and when told we were looking for a public footpath was none too happy but pointed out to us a gate in the fence behind the new buildings, which he assured us led onto the path. He invited us to walk across the footings, goodness knows what will happen when the buildings are complete and another rambler wants access and has to go through someone's kitchen (!), and we went through the gate into what can only be described as a sea of mud.


               

We attempted to find the path but then realised that we were being watch by an extremely large bull, clearly built for speed who was looking after his harem. Discretion being the better part of valour, we decided to retrace our steps as fast as we could to the gate and across the footings back to your Editor's car which we proceeded to fill with the products of the field off our footwear (no bull sh*t).

We agreed to look for the line further towards the terminus but first an attempt was made to discover the route of the Southport - Preston line (CP 7 Sep 1964) from Hesketh Bank station. Your scribe missed travelling on this line by just 10 minutes (long story). Driving round a couple of housing estates we came to the conclusion that the actual route probably lay in their back gardens. Back onto the main road and across what remains of the bridge over the railway we found a road that led to 'River View.' Almost turning on two wheels your Editor steered the vehicle into yet another estate and using the maxim that 'the river is always at the bottom of the hill' parked up and we discovered a path leading to the River Douglas. Across a field and up onto what was obviously the railway route we proceeded towards Tarleton (success!). It OA 3 Jun 1912; CP 1 Oct 1913 and CA by Nov 1930 (hence the old map). There was one intermediate stop at Boat Yard Crossing Halt just before Tarleton.

This was not the right time of year to be walking old lines in this part of deepest Lancashire as soon we found ourselves in mud again and decided to retrace our steps. Going past the spot where we had accessed the path we were soon in a field full of cows who were eyeing us suspiciously. Checking the time we realised that we needed to head to the afternoon's event or we would be late so we bade farewell to this short lived line duly now recorded in the Society archives as visited by a BLS party.

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