Hart Common Railway Station, Planned But Never Opened?.

[exsignalman]

I just wondered if anyone had any information regarding a station that I understand was planned by the L&Y as far back as the 1880s but never opened.
This was at Hart Common, between Crow Nest Junction & Dobb Brow Junction on the 'Atherton Line'.

When the quadruple line from Windsor Bridge to Crow Nest Jct was constructed by the L&Y in the 1880s, their principal civil engineering contractor for the contract (Monk & Newall) appeared to have made provision for a station to be provided in the area of Hart Common/Dobb Brow should the future need ever arise.

A few of the now (sadly departed & passed away) old timer drivers/signalmen & per way etc sometimes pointed out the unusual gap between the up slow & down slow lines at Hart Common, & in particular the way that the up slow was configured, curved & slewed to create an island (a ghost island platform area).. with the quote 'There was meant to be a station there at one time but nowt came of it' end quote.

You can clearly see the area in what would now be termed as future "passive provision" for the station at Hart Common to be provided on the NLS maps.

You can see how the up slow line was configured to run via a separate bridge portal of Old Fold Road, to create space for a future island platform to serve the slow lines only... very much along the style of
Daisy Hill
Walkden
Moorside & Wardley (original naming)
Swinton
Pendlebury

Link below to NLS map showing the location where Hart Common station was supposed to have been.

maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=16.5&lat=53.54320&lon=-2.54382&layers=168&right=ESRIWorld

There has since been extensive housing development in the South Westhoughton area of Dobb Brow/Southfield Drive/Eatock areas that often sparks the discussion of a new railway station to serve the area, but this time I understand that if it was to be ever built then it would now be built a little further east at Dobb Brow, roughly between the A58 overbridge & the site of where the actual junction at Dobb Brow once was... plus I suppose that there would now be ample room for car parking etc in the 'vee' where the junction was & where the slow lines once ran, as now at Dobb Brow the Atherton line follows the course of the fast lines, at least as far as Daisy Hill station where they slew back over to their original slow lines area.

Indeed as for Dobb Brow station, I can clearly remember actually seeing it (albeit on some short lived GMPTE rail maps) stating ... Dobb Brow opening 1987.

There was also a very short lived mid 1980s GMPTE Newspaper called 'The Passenger' (I think that it died a death after about 3 copies) & was circulated circa 1985 but I vaguely remember that as well as a huge feature on Q trains, it too also mentioned the two new stations coming soon... one at Hag Fold, the other at Dobb Brow.

One got built.... the other..

Not so built.

Had the original been built in the original envisaged location I wonder just what it would have been named?.

Hart Common?.. or Hart Common & Dobb Brow?.

These days you wouldn't even really notice much of the site as what with the removal of the fast lines in 1966 & the ad hoc slewings to find the "best" track & realignments, the now up Atherton & down Atherton lines now pass through the area of Hart Common on the following alignments

Up Atherton (now on the course of the down slow)
Down Atherton (now on the course of the down fast)

Does anyone else remember 'The Passenger' .. the newspaper of GMPTE ?

 

[Springs Branch]

I've never come across anything documented about a station at Hart Common. However Hart Common was an established coal mining settlement at the time the Atherton Line was built (the Hewlett Pits were operating by the mid-1870s - over a decade before the Atherton Line opened - and had already been connected by rail to the Hindley to Lostock Jn line), so it would have made sense for the L&YR to provide a station there.

The old map evidence is compelling, and the "1+3 track" arrangement of metal bridge parapets is still visible via Google Street View on the Old Fold Rd overbridge - exactly the same as at Daisy Hill and Moorside.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Girxk5nBBWB2qzS89

I've not looked into this before, but I'm wondering if the original enabling Acts of Parliament for railway construction give any clues as to where stations were planned to be located?


[EDIT] The Act which authorized the Atherton Line was the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Act 1883 of 2nd August 1883.
A scanned pdf is available at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/Vict/46-47/169/pdfs/ukla_18830169_en.pdf (copy attached below).

I haven't ploughed through all the Whereas and Thereofs in this, but a quick glance suggests no mention of any stations at all - neither at Hart Common, nor any of the other communities along the new line. Maybe these only appeared in the Acts when some Duke or Earl wanted to insist on having a particular station convenient for his county estate?

There is also the matter of Deposited Plans, which accompanied the various railway Acts of Parliament, and those relating to the 1883 Act may (or may not) show a Hart Common station.

According to the Parliamentary Archives website, Deposited Plans are not accessible online; you need to make an appointment to view them in person at either the Houses of Parliament or the National Archives at Kew. Some plans are known to be missing and a fraction are too fragile to be viewed.