Blackrod Station - Northbound (Preston) Platform

Almost all of the published photographs of Blackrod Station concentrate on the Bolton and Horwich platforms along with the goods yard and L&Y booking office. The northbound platform is therefore much neglected in this respect. Buildings consisted of a brick-built waiting room and ticket office, and an open-air urinal. The main building survived longer than any of the older L&Y buildings across the tracks, clinging on long into the 1980s.

The Preston-bound platform is skewed in relation to the other side, originally extending all the way southwards to the Station Road bridge. It has more recently been cut short and is now much shorter than the south-bound platform. The platform construction itself, is of solid stone construction, not having been rebuilt with concrete components as the south-bound and branch platforms were. It's interesting to note that those concrete components are now in a poor state of repair, whilst the older solid platform remains sound.

BRB photo

A general view, taken around 1974, of the two platforms taken from between the tracks. This shows clearly the difference in construction between the two. The brick waiting room building is visible on the left, just beyond the "new" footbridge steps.

Photo : BRB

ticket window - BW

The brick-built waiting room survived well into the 80s. It had two rooms, with the main one accessible from the front door, and a smaller room accessed via a door on the left of the main waiting area, with a ticket window.

Photo : Barrie Watkins 1980

Water Tour - EB

This is the water tower which was immediately to the north of the main footbridge which spanned the main lines and goods yard. This shot was taken from the elevated position provided by that bridge.

Water Tower - EB

A second picture of the water tower, with the footbridge and urinal block just visible.

The Platform edge, visible in this photo, is of stone-built construction, with stone slab tops. Much of this remains today. To the right of this picture were the three sidings which were originally for coal traffic, but were used later for the Cook & Nuttalls "empties".

B&W photographs on this page by Eric Blakey courtesy of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Society