THE DAYS when the railway really did run past the front of your house weren't so long ago.

Trains were once a part of everyday life. Like boiled eggs, jam butties, flat caps, navy blue school knickers, tripe and clogs.

Walking round the corner and crossing an unguarded rail track or watching a coal train pass the front window were familiar sights to people in Journal-land.

They were part of a fascinating period when the area buzzed with industrial life - an era comprehensively recorded between the covers of Leigh author Dennis Sweeney's newly published masterpiece "A Lancashire Triangle" - Part Two.

Look from Wigan Road towards Leigh town centre and you would nowadays find it hard to believe mineral and passenger rail links once dominated the scene.

But they did, you know. And this latest publication will be a revelation to younger readers and a timely reminder to their elders about the way things were.

Supermarket shoppers park there cars where the internal railway system hauled goods to and from Hayes's Victoria Mills off Kirkhall Lane.

"A hundred years of local social history is contained within the pages," we said in our Journal preview.

Having had the privilege of reviewing the top quality, 200 page title, we can only endorse that statement.

Last day specials from Leigh station and a saddletank pit loco brushing by a Tyldesley terrace are scenes to cherish. Along with a rare undergound picture of miners on the manrider in the Arley Mine down Blackmoor's Nook Pit.

And there's a marvellous mid-50s' full plate photograph showing a little blonde girl riding her tricycle a yard or two from Parsonage Pit track.

Older readers will ponder as to whether it is really nearly 30 years since Mosley Common pit closed. The enormity of the "showpiece" pit is apparent. Younger ones will grasp just how vast it was by glancing at the two housing estates which have sprouted on its site.

The new book is a perfect complement to "A Lancashire Triangle" - Part One, which was published last autumn.

A continuing survey of the London and North Western Railways' network in the South Lancashire coalfield, Part Two contains precious, never-to-be-repeated scenes shot by dedicated photographers and rail enthusiasts.

Photographs by celebrated ex-railwayman Jim Carter, landscape photographer Tom Edmondson and cameramen Alf Yates, Gerry Bent and David Norman and the author's informative detailed captions make this a real gem.

Step back in time with 1950s' scenes of Bolton Great Moor Street Station, Fletcher Street Junction and Lever Street. And dip into Little Hulton, Plodder Lane engine shed, Walkden and Roe Green memories.

Landscape scenes and Lanry bridges, Marsland Green coal wharf, Bickershaw Colliery, night-time at Astley Green engine sheds and the famous 50s' Journal photo of the bus in Nook Pit lodge conjure up fireside dreams.

The railway circle may have been broken with off-track Leigh since 1969 and nowadays the largest town in the country without a rail link.

But The Triangle is completed by the Pennington Loop, plus scenes from the Roe Green, Worsley to Bolton Great Moor Street branch and the central railways system.

Maps, line drawings, timetables and train movements add to the variety.

Copies of "A Lancashire Triangle" Part Two are available price £25 from The Journal Office, 44/46 Railway Road, Leigh. A limited number of Part One editions are also available at the same price.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.