The McElroy brothers reminisce about illicitly exploring the station
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 27th July 2011 by Liam Physick
The McElroys share their memories of illicitly exploring Edge Hill station in their spare time. David acknowledges that they risked punishment if caught, but points out there was no vandalism, only harmless curisoity. Steve talks about his exploration in depth, going by the sheds, seeing the tunnels, climbing inside the boiler shaft and liftting the trucks’ coupling chains
Interview Transcript
David: Yeah, as I say, there were various places that, one could easily get into the, the, sort of, less used parts of the station and its environs, and, well, it was always a, a balance between not wishing to get caught, cos that was the, that’s one of the things that, if you ever got, you’re taken home to your parents and you could guarantee you would get, you know, sort of, reprimanded, shall we say, and, you know, and, for the most part there was no vandalism, this was just kids’ curiosity . . .
Jenny: Yeah
David: . . . you know, sort of, wanting to go places where they weren’t allowed, just, just to see, the, the, the railway carriages and so on, close up.
Steve: Yeah, I was never a, never a trainspotter but I used to spend, similarly, a lot of time, probably, a few years after you were doing it, but my memories would be certainly, you know, you know, looking out for no adults being around, and then, just literally go wandering around over there by the, the, the old sheds (indecipherable), they weren’t then by Spekeland Road, and at the back of the, the coal offices down there, that was a favourite area of mine, and then, the, the cut down to the Wapping Tunnel, because it was, they, they were still using it but not very often, and going down there you could see the, the, the tunnels where the, the , like, the, like, the boiler shafts and all that from the original railway – I didn’t know what they were then, I know what they are now, but we used to, like, climb up to them, and crawl around in them as well, and on the other side of Chatsworth Street there was another, another railway yard there, which was connected to all of this, and Crown Street, and we used to go in there as well. Did you ever lift, you know, the, the coupling chains from the coal wagons? The weight of them!
David: Oh, heavy, incredible.
Steve: Take your fingers off and then a lot of, a lot of railway injuries were caused, were caused by, by that of thing, you used to have, like, a special pole to do it . . .
David: To, to, to lift it.
Steve: . . . but they were, they were incredibly heavy, yeah. So we used to do that a fair bit, but I used to love it here.
Categorised under: The Station & Railway Pioneers
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