IT was a job that only the most experienced underground workers were equipped to tackle when a train ploughed into a 15ft snowdrift, becoming quickly engulfed by the blizzard-like conditions and trapping the passengers within their coaches.

The episode, as vaguely recalled by Sutton's local historian Chris Coffey, occurred at Lea Green during a deep-freeze winter around the beginning of the 1939-45 world war. The story came from Chris's late father, Eric, a porter at St Helens Junction station at that time.

Chris believes that no newspaper account of the happening exists, as there was a kind of government censorship blanket concerning demoralising incidents during those sensitive wartime years.

In this case, however, serious consequences were apparently averted.

The miners from Lea Green Colliery tunnelled through the huge, wide- spreading snowdrift and each passenger, who might otherwise have been trapped until the thaw set in, was led to safety via the propped-up escape route created.

Chris (and myself for that matter) would love to know more.

Although the incident took place more than 60 years ago, there is a fair chance that at least one of the rescued passengers, then perhaps a child or young person, still survives to relate the remarkable tale.

ANYONE able to add a fact or two could kindly drop a line to Whalley's World at the Star.