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Didsbury


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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi Peter,

 

Just come over here from a chance comment Gilbert's Peterborough North thread.

 

I think I'm right in saying that the station's official title was 'Withington and West Didsbury', although whether it appeared as such on the station name boards I'm not sure (it was certainly on the signalbox). The re-born Metrolink station goes by the name of West Didsbury.

 

Whatever, lovely work, as always. The ornate grandeur of the unusual station building had been captured beautifully. I'm familiar with it through the Foxline book as my previous layout was based on the Midland mainline out of Manchester.

 

Graham

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5 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Hi Peter,

 

Just come over here from a chance comment Gilbert's Peterborough North thread.

 

I think I'm right in saying that the station's official title was 'Withington and West Didsbury', although whether it appeared as such on the station name boards I'm not sure (it was certainly on the signalbox). The re-born Metrolink station goes by the name of West Didsbury.

 

Whatever, lovely work, as always. The ornate grandeur of the unusual station building had been captured beautifully. I'm familiar with it through the Foxline book as my previous layout was based on the Midland mainline out of Manchester.

 

Graham

 

No, that was the next station along the line, although it's station was very similar to the one at the other Didsbury station.

 

west didsbury station 2a

 

west didsbury station 1a

 

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Whoops! - I was thinking of the difference between West and East Didsburys, the latter being on a completely different piece of railway.

 

To be fair, my layout was based on the section between New Mills South Junction and Chinley. Easily befuddled!

Edited by LNER4479
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In the spring of 1965 I commuted into Manchester Central from Didsbury on my way to Uni in Salford.  This was my first year away from home so I didn't take as much interest in the railway as I would now.  However, I think the return fare was 2 shillings and tuppence; the bus fare was one and ten pence but the train was quicker.  I think the train I caught was around 8.10 am and comprised an ex-LMS tank engine and 2 coaches only.   I can't remember the normal train back in the afternoons but Uni finished at 12.30 on Wednesdays so I was able to catch an earlier, more impressive train - I think it was a Sheffield train hauled by a tender engine.

 

The library and Emmanuel Church were the opposite side of Wilmslow Road from the station and I attended the latter for a while.  The Station Inn was also opposite and sold a rough cider for one and five pence a pint!  I can remember a conversation late one Sunday evening which went along the lines that, whilst the landlord might be prepared to take the risk, could my companion (the curate) imagine how it would look in the paper if the Rev Brian P...…… was fined for drinking after hours?

 

I am very impressed with your model, which brings back many memories from those days. Will you be modelling the tennis courts next to the footpath from the station to Moorland Road?  I used to play (badly) on these and befriended a family who lived in a house opposite the footpath.  For what it's worth, they owned a black Rover 75! 

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On 26/08/2020 at 20:49, LNER4479 said:

Whoops! - I was thinking of the difference between West and East Didsburys, the latter being on a completely different piece of railway.

 

Didsbury being affluent could afford three stations, West Didsbury being at the outer edge and adding Withington because well it didn't have a station and neighbouring Fallowfield did.

 

Very big houses surrounded West Didsbury, the centre of Didsbury was full of terraces but as you moved out west and north then the houses grew in stature.  Withington wasn't quite so grand but it had larger terraces and then came the 1930s semi-detached houses that sprung up all around Withington on estates.

 

East Didsbury was another 1900s expansion but bigger semi detached & detached houses.

 

Stuck in between East Didsbury and Withington was Burnage, where the Gallagher brothers of Oasis grew up so we don't need to say anymore about the types of houses built there.

 

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I spent most of my student apprenticeship at a factory in Burnage and both sidesmen at my first wedding lived there!

 

Burnage and East Didsbury were on the LNW Piccadilly - Styal line, whilst Didsbury and West Didsbury and Withington were on the line to Central.

 

I left my tonsils in Withington hospital.

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59 minutes ago, 2750Papyrus said:

I spent most of my student apprenticeship at a factory in Burnage and both sidesmen at my first wedding lived there!

 

Burnage and East Didsbury were on the LNW Piccadilly - Styal line, whilst Didsbury and West Didsbury and Withington were on the line to Central.

 

I left my tonsils in Withington hospital.

Withington hospital is not a patch on what it was, lost out to Wythenshawe and the big redevelopment at St Marys.

 

My mum was the postie for West Didsbury, sometimes I would ride out with her in the early summer mornings, at that time West Didsbury & Withington was just a growing mass of weeds, never thought that line would one day see trains of any sort again.  Abe Ginsberg was the famous person on her round, he also ran a second hand shop in Fallowfield.

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23 hours ago, woodenhead said:

 

East Didsbury was another 1900s expansion but bigger semi detached & detached houses.

 

 

 

Yep, until the 1930s large parts of Didsbury were still farmland. In fact there was a farm house that remained until the 1990s about 100 yards from my house.

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On 02/09/2020 at 08:04, woodenhead said:

Withington hospital is not a patch on what it was, lost out to Wythenshawe and the big redevelopment at St Marys.

 

My mum was the postie for West Didsbury, sometimes I would ride out with her in the early summer mornings, at that time West Didsbury & Withington was just a growing mass of weeds, never thought that line would one day see trains of any sort again.  Abe Ginsberg was the famous person on her round, he also ran a second hand shop in Fallowfield.

I was born and bred in West Didsbury having been born in Withington Hospital. Used to play down the ‘old railway’ as we called as a kid in the 80s. Withington & West Didsbury was already heavily overgrown by then.

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3 hours ago, Jim76 said:

I was born and bred in West Didsbury having been born in Withington Hospital. Used to play down the ‘old railway’ as we called as a kid in the 80s. Withington & West Didsbury was already heavily overgrown by then.

I was talking the 70s, it didn't take long for the weeds to take over the route.

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2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

I was talking the 70s, it didn't take long for the weeds to take over the route.

One of my earliest memories is from a friends further down the line at East Didsbury, their house backed onto the line and even had a gate from their back garden it still looked like a railway albeit without track. It didn’t flood like around West Didsbury. It would’ve been about 1980.

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  • 6 months later...

Wilmslow rd Detached property for Didsbury, adjacent to railway, at Wilmslow bridge.

photos will follow and are many.

I won’t post all but shots from different stages of the build process but not the time to do it in one go.

 

 

 

67120CC7-B2F0-488B-BD17-38BD36787B52.jpeg

5DF402F5-E689-47CE-A4B5-852DDAEE1EA5.jpeg

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