Tyldesley - Transport

Transport

Edward Entwistle, the driver of the first inter-city scheduled passenger train in the world, was born in Tyldesley in 1815. He drove the passenger service on the Liverpool to Manchester railway.

In 1861 the London and North Western Railway revived powers granted to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to build a railway from Eccles to Wigan through Tyldesley. Tyldesley railway station was to the east of the junction of the branch to Kenyon Junction on the Liverpool to Manchester Line via Leigh and Pennington. The Earl of Ellesmere cut the first sod at Worsley on 11 September 1861 and the line opened to traffic on 1 September 1864. The Tyldesley Loopline closed on 3 May 1969 as a result of the Beeching Axe. The former trackbed within the Wigan MBC area was reserved, in case the rail route could be reinstated, in the Unitary Development Plan, UDP. The current proposal for the Leigh-Tyldesley area is a guided bus route along the trackbed joining the A580 close to Roe Green but this not universally popular. The nearest railway station is Atherton which is 1.2 miles (1.9 km) to the north on the Wigan to Manchester line.

In 1900, a Bill authorising the South Lancashire Tramways Company to construct over 62 miles (100 km) of tramway in southern Lancashire was given Royal Assent. However, by November 1900 the South Lancashire Electric Traction and Power Company had acquired the shares. The first section of tramway opened on 20 October 1902 between Lowton and Four Lanes Ends via Leigh and Atherton and on 25 October 1902 a branch from Atherton to Tyldesley was opened and Tyldesley got its first tram. This company got into financial difficulty and in turn became Lancashire United Tramways later Lancashire United Transport. In August 1931 trams were replaced by trolley buses. Because of Tyldesley's narrow streets trams, and later trolley buses, had to follow a one-way system; eastbound trams ran along Shuttle Street and Milk Street and westbound trams used Elliot Street and Castle Street, a system now used by all traffic. Tyldesley is connected to neighbouring towns by bus services operated by South Lancs Travel of Atherton and First Greater Manchester.