Layers of history…

Today’s commuters don’t blink as the rationalised railway passes the old Inkerman Street line on the approach to Denton Road from the west…The connection crossed the canal on its own alignment and the bridge and track bed are still in place, overgrown and strewn with the litter and detritus of urban life.The former Lancashire and Yorkshire railway terminus didn’t survive long after the Second World War and was an early casualty of the various routes and stations in Manchester as British Railways wrestled to make sense of its tangled inheritance.Despite this I enjoy spotting the former junction and imagining the old L&Y 2-4-2s busily shuffling their trains through Denton Road and beyond whilst the Cummins engines of my 80s Pacer take turns in idling and hard load as wheels squeal and we enjoy the temporary rest bite of welded rail on my approach on the train from Chester.Denton Road is probably my favourite and most successful, at least visually, Mosslanda concept. Just 55cm long it…