WLR 7 Hesketh Bank Multi-Cache
the waltons A team: Loss of personal mobility
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This cache is one of the WLR (West Lancashire Railway) series marking stations on the long gone WLR. You should find parking within metres of the co-ords is not a problem, and if they are open you might want to visit the West Lancashire LIGHT Railway on the east side of the road, they have a free car-park, and are well worth a visit, and might also provide cachers with some good photo opportunities!
Way back in the ‘50’s I often made the trip from New Longton Station to Southport on the West Lancashire Railway at a cost of 1/6d (7.5p) for the return journey. Sadly those days are long gone, the WLR having steamed it’s last in 1964. So in an effort to acknowledge the old railway that was, it is our intention to mark each of the original stations with a cache. If it proves possible to locate a cache in the immediate area of the original station this we will do, however much building and development has taken place since the closure, so in a lot of cases the cache may have to be an offset.
Another station that has been totally swallowed up by housing development, with the old track-bed even forming the estate road.
However a small feature still remains, which you might wish to make use of, it’s in the shape of the old stepped footpath that was the pedestrian route from the main road down to the station (if you look at the photograph you can see it, just on the left of the bridge, with the brickworks chimney to the right)
At the bottom of the steps find the number of the Waste Water Pumping Station (five digits)… take the fourth digit and multiply this by 4 and add your answer to your present latitude (the published one) Now add together the first, second and fourth digits and take your answer from your present longitude. NOTE: Take care... Latitude is N-S, Longitude W-E! You now have the location of the cache, which is only a short distance away.
HISTORY… At one time this station might have technically been Hesketh Bank Junction, when a single track branch line existed as far as the boat yard in Tarleton serving as a rail link to the River Douglas, and the Leeds Liverpool Canal. Never intended to carry passengers, although an unsuccessful trial passenger service was attempted between 1912 and 1913. Never-the-less the location was a busy one, with siding facilities for coal, goods, and local produce, Alty’s brickworks even having their own branch and sidings. Also less than a quarter mile down the line was the Douglas swing bridge (see our GCQKFX ‘Swinging Sixties’).
ORIGINAL CONTENTS: Log strip, pencil, and info for main cache…
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Zntargvp vafvqr n ‘H’ frpgvba hcevtug
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures