North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Surely any loco is full size, unless it is a scale replica?

Jon

 

i don't....

 

Indeed, and in truth given the entire front line fleets of the Ffestiniog, Welsh Highland, Vale of Rheidol, Brecon Mountain and Snowdon Mountain Railways were oil fired at one point, makes the achievement somewhat less impressive. I know the locos aren't on the same scale as an S160, but an NGG16 isn't small.

John

 

Following this weekends bus crash, no access from Egton into Grosmont until 2026. Access via Sleights or use other stations if more convienent I guess?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c25ll7j5zlyo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1xxvly5g9o

PLANNED ROAD RESTRICTION NOTIFICATION - EM River Esk Bridge Front Street Grosmont

Location: Front Street, Grosmont CP, Grosmont, Unknown

Description of works: Damage to bridge following vehicle damage - inspection and repairs

The Restriction will be in place for a period of 549 days between 5th August 2024 and 4th February 2026

The Road Restriction and any associated traffic management can be viewed using this URL link https://one.network/?tm=139840908#

Regards

North Yorkshire Council

 

Close shave! We were up at Grosmont last Friday for the dining train, and this road is the driving route into Grosmont given by Google Maps for anyone driving from Darlington and Teesside. Good job we weren’t booked on Saturday’s diner…

In any sane joined-up world this closure would lead to a re-examination of the service on the Esk Vslley line to see if the timetable could be improved to actually be of any use to anyone wanting to use it as a piece of integrated public transport in North Yorkshire and to get cars and buses off these narrow dangerous roads (faster services, of at least more of them; better connections at Middlesbrough from Darlington and York; split the service into “park and rail” shuttles etc.) But that won’t happen, so all traffic for the NYMR and the National Park car park in Grosmont will now have to come down the bank and go across the NYMR level crossing. The queues will be horrendous.

 

I believe the line is pretty much at capacity through the middle of the day, the downsides to a single line with loops, whether you'd be able to gain anything by removing the NYMR from the equation I couldn't say.

 

There might be a capacity issue but I’m not so sure: have any loops been taken out of service in the last thirty years? Because I’m pretty sure that there used to be significantly more trains to Whitby under BR - and most of them started from Darlington, making much better connections with the rest of the country! I don’t think the few paths used by the NYMR are an issue, especially now that Whitby has two platforms. IIRC another problem at the moment is that the service level is dictated by what one train can provide shuttling back and forth. So, at the very least we need another cascaded sprinter.

I’ve often wondered about the feasibility of splitting the service into a Middlesbrough-Battersby shuttle connecting with a Battersby-Whitby shuttle (first/last trains running through from/to the depot).

Battersby has plenty of space (hardly anyone lives there) to house a new car park to connect into the trains for a “park and ride and hike” into the national park.

This would also give Great Ayton - a classic affluent commuter village - a service that might encourage a shift from car to train, and insulate Esk Valley services from delays and problems caused miles away. Currently Great Ayton is “stranded” on the branch, as most commuter services terminate at Nunthorpe. I suspect that no-one in Great Ayton ever uses the train as it’s so useless for any journeys anyone living there might want to take either towards Middlesbrough or Whitby.

Who knows, although reinstatement from Battersby back to the Leeds Northern mainline at Picton is probably a crayonista fantasy, an eventual reinstatement of the relatively short stretch back to Stokesley could tap into another source of passengers for the national park. Anyway, this is all a bit OT on an NYMR thread. I hope that the bridge closure period noted is a “worst case” scenario and that the road reopens soon, for the sake of Grosmont’s residents and the NYMR.

 

The current signalling doesn't allow any more services on the line - @torgormaig or @Steve will probably know more, but I believe it's constrained by Glaisdale - Whitby being one token section with NYMR services joining the section midway. If you look at RTT, you'll see that NYMR services have to be in the platform at Whitby or at Grosmont before a Northern service can depart eastwards from Glaisdale.

Looking through timetables from the 70s onwards, it appears that it was generally 4 trains per day through to Whitby. Morning and mid-afternoon ones have always been for the school traffic. It's not until recent years that extra services have been added.

So yes, it is the NYMR's services that are suppressing Northern services on the line. Nothing can change unless a loop is put back in at Sleights, the signalling arrangements are changed, or NYMR stop serving Whitby. Adding extra services would also need more units and more staff, and Northern aren't exactly flush with either at the moment.

 

I converted a Snowdon locomotive using innovative technology to solve traditional issues with oil firing. I have subsequently used the knowledge is the USA in the early 2000’s, Australia in 2011 with big efficiency savings and on some current projects. This This was all before FMW was on the scene. So the technology is available in the UK. It’s here to be used.

 

I believe that there are also constraints at Middlesbrough, driven by the interaction of services from as far back as Leeds. That won't affect line capacity, but will affect when paths are available. If you took NYMR out of the equation, it's also worth note that the 1980s rationalisation of the Esk Valley removed the loop at Castleton Moor, further reducing the capacity of the branch.

 

@5944 is pretty much spot on with his analysis. The NYMR would very much like there to be more paths available during the day as what is available to them puts significant constraints on their timetable. The Northern T/T can’t really be altered as the am and pm ‘school trains’ are written in tablets of stone. One of the reasons running to Battersby has been abandoned by the NYMR is that there is no practical return path at a sensible time so that facility couldn’t be used.

 

FMW?

 

Thanks @5944 @35B and @Steve for explaining the constraints introduced by over-excessive rationalisation. Ah well. To remove any ambiguity, I wasn’t proposing an NYMR Battersby shuttle - my idea was that both legs (M’boro to Battersby and Battersby-Whitby) would be covered by the national railway, with the NYMR sticking to its existing “Whitby extension”.

Whether Northern is strapped for cash is now of lesser relevant given that Northern now exists only as a vestigial rump of the Operator of Last Resort, and will soon hopefully be subsumed into a more logically constituted “regional services” division of Great (ugh!) British Railways. That might be in a position to take a more network-focussed approach to reversing excessive rationalisation, in conjunction with developed transport budgets to the regional mayors. We can but hope.

 

The US outfit assisting the Vera Lynn conversion on the NYMR.

 

My optimism is low - let's not forget the downgrading of the line in the BR period.

 

Interestingly, three out of the four eastbound bus services run in gaps between the train services, and call at or near some of the stations en route. The one that crashed, 13.10 from Lealholmside, is in the middle of a 4 hour lull in train services. Despite that, and even with it being a summer Saturday in a tourist area, only one passenger was on the bus when it crashed.

 

Why does the BBC and North Yorkshire Police report that "five people were rescued" then? No that it makes the case for expanding the railway.

 

Reminds me of a crash that once occurred on the North Devon & Cornwall Junction Railway. A train and a bus collided at a level crossing. 6 people were involved - the driver, fireman and guard on the train; the driver and conductor on the bus; and one passenger between them!

Tom

 

That was the initial report - now updated to say only one passenger on board.

https://www.thescarboroughnews.co.u...lided-with-bridge-and-fell-into-river-4730314

 

I wonder if we will eventually find out it was an autonomous vehicle with nobody aboard