... And It Was!
Above is Saltburn Station. It says so on a bright orange North Eastern Region sign above the rather imposing front door.
Only it isn't! It was once, but it isn't any more! Here is Saltburn station ...
... a single platform with just a shelter, located round the back of Sainsburys. How the mighty are fallen!
Traveilling by train from Middlesbrough and just before you get to the station there is a right hand turn for trains, using a line which is still open.
This curve led, eventually to Redcar then Whitby West Cliff and on c/o Larpool Viaduct to Scarborough. See where the line crosses on the above map (bottom right)?
The proposal was to close "Saltburn Platform" and build a new station at this bridge location.
Then you could extend the existing Saltburn service all the way to Scarborough. At the same time you could extend services between York and Scarborough, limited stop, to Whitby and Middlesbrough.
This line is still open for freight trains to Boulby.
Boulby? The line is very wiggly ...
... and, as above, perilously close to the cliff edge. It serves the famous Boubly Potash Mine which is a huge site a tad past Loftus and Easington.
Potash is Potassium Carbonate, a valuable source of Potassium metal as well as usage in its powdered form for mamy other industrial processes. The site is huge ...
... and the mine is deep.
It is so deep that part of the mine is used as a laboratory looking for clever stuff as part of a study of subatomic particles (neutrinos) and, furthermore, ferreting out "dark matter". You would suppose they need the lights on to find dark matter. If not ...
... the search for dark matter in a dark mine might be a tad on the tricky side. Or maybe fbb's nuclear physics knowledge is sadly not up to date?
It was this rail map of Whitby which alerted fbb to a crackpot proposal.
The plan was to build a tunnel between West Cliff and Whitby Town and hoick the track up somehow to cross the Larpool Viaduct. Note the key says that the GREEN line is new and in tunnel. The idea was to build platforms on this new route in avtunnel under the existing "Town" station.
It would have been a heck of a climb from below that existing station up the hill to the viaduct.
And there was another tunnel proposed at Scarborough ...
... to ensure that trains from York to Middlesbrough could avoid the avoiding line on their way north (RED).
But when was this proposed and why did fbb know nothing about it?
After countless minutes of dutiful research, fbb gathered that such a proposal did not exist. It was just an idea from a YouTube video presenter who had walked, and "filmed" the whole line from Scarborough to Boulby.
He even proposed automatic level crossings with full route electrification; and, astoundingly this was on a line closed in the late 50s and early 60s; where most of the infrastructure had been demolished and parts of the track bed are, indeed, perilously close to the cliff edge!
Sections of he line had suffered from really dodgy engineering - like where the tunnels didn't quite meet in the middle ...
The costs of re-opening would be way beyond reasonable. If Rachel cannot afford to put up a few lengths of electric string to get the Midland Main line "sparked" to Sheffield, she is not going to reinstate the lines between Saltburn, Whitby and Scarborough!
But we can dream ...
... And It Wasn't ...
With First Bus going corporate and National livery-wise; and Stagecoach ...
... also paining their motors in gloom shades - the shades of "shades" ...
... GROAN! ... readers could be forgiven if the thought that route branding is dead.
Remember this?
Or even this.
The Red Arrow involved linking the existing limited stop service between Nottingham and Derby with the "ordinary" long-standing bus between Derby and Chesterfield.
The Arrow flew first in 1997.
Subsequently the service lost its Chesterfield extension, which became "Comet", and now runs only between Nottingham and Derby.
That history involved Barton's 5X route which fbb rode ages ago on a vehicle similar to that below ...
... a much more "interesting" ride than on a posh coach!
It is revealing to chart the livery development of the Red Arrow route; and fbb will do just that in tomorrow's blog.
Next Variety blog : Sat 2 Aug
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