Darlington Development Decision (4)

So What WILL Happen / What May Happen?

Above is a Google Earth view of Darlington (Bank Top) Station looking south. In the bottom half of the picture you can see the main road entrance (former Carriage Road), the extra parking on the site of the north facing bays and the more recent footbridge from the east side parking.

In the upper half of the picture, reading from left to right, is the extensive car park on the site of former goods facilities ...

... the main station with the clock tower on the right. Note that the "avoiding lines" have now been removed.

The local press has provided readers with an artist's impression of what the improved station will look like.

Once again, you can spot the current footbridge from the car park, the Carriage Road and the clock tower (just peeping in, top right).

It would appear, however, that things are happening on the eastern car park site. fbb could only enlarge the original and create a fuzzy picture - but it is better than nothing.

There would be a brand new station building on part of the car park linked to the exisring train shed by a posh new footbridge.

But it is the pseudo trains that provide the most of the interest. Clearly inter-city services are using new avoiding lines on the site of the old.

Then there is a shorter (Local?) train espied under and beyond the new footbridge. Mysteriously there is a huge wide slab of something which might be a completely new southbound platform  but it doesn't have any track.

Confused.com?

What about the text in the article, clearly based on an inadequate press release?

A major transformation of Darlington station would double capacity for some passengers on the regional network.

Improvements would see four trains an hour on the Tees Valley line (to Middlesbrough etc) and two trains an hour to Bishop Auckland.

This would represent a doubling of the pre-covid frequency.

High-speed services would be able to run through the station, cutting journey times to London to just under two hours due to HS2, a meeting heard.

That is assuming HS2 ever gets linked to the East Coast main line at some stage in a misty-eyed future. But what does it mean, "run through the station"?

Work is due to start in 2023 and be completed 2025, before the bi-centenary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.

There appears to be a heck of a lot to do in two years!

Councillors were told it was crucial the historic station was modernised and made more accessible, with new platforms, an interchange and station building being built as part of £100m-plus plans.

But now it begins to get silly.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said officials behind the plans had said that Darlington would be the only station on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) without a platform specifically for the London to Scotland service.

Chairman Mike Renton, Conservative ...

... said he thought it would "lose a bit of prestige in the rail world" as it was "a mainline station that isn't actually on the mainline".

"It's like being selected for the England squad but not actually getting a game," he added.

Clearly young Mike does not understand how stations work. But the press or the council has worked it all out, clever chaps and chapesses that they aren't!

It has since been clarified that when the new national platform is built, trains from the north would simply pull off the ECML on to some new parallel track to allow people on and off, before the train rejoins the line.

You haven't got it yet; try again say the "officials".

Officials have likened this to when a bus enters a bus lay-by, leaving the rail line free if others want to pass it. The London to Scotland service will continue to call at Darlington, in both directions.

Any news of the London to Newcastle service?

Councillor Nick Wallis, Labour ...

... said the scheme had made remarkable progress since a few years ago, when the timescales now being put forward seemed "highly unlikely if not impossible".

fbb prefers his Facebook picture!

An excellent likeness!

fbb THINKS that the revised layout implies the following:-

The former avoiding lines (outside the train shed) will be re-instated, allowing some trains to run non-stop past Darlington. If trains are to stop, they will pull off the main lines and either into the train shed (northbound) or, possibly, into a new southbound platform adjacent to the new station building.

It seems straightforward but, of course, fbb may have got it wrong. But not as wrong as the local press and politicians!

Time alone will tell what actually happens - IF it happens.

Baffled By Beachcomber Blue ...

... which doesn't look very blue/

As well as the more memorable Scarpborough open top service, East Yorkshire have just started a similar in Bridlington. fbb has been to Brid and has travelled by bus to Flamborough - but it was way back in 1965.

Flamborough Head (and area) is home to a mega caravan site, some spectacular cliffs and two lighthouses, old and new.

The normal out-of-season route is Go Ahead East Yorkshire service 14.

Unfortunately, for weary brains like fbb's, the leaflet doesn't make it absolutely clear what is going on. On the map, the 14 is shown in orange ...

... and the non-blue Scarborough Blue is shown in, erm, blue. The routes are different at the pretty end. The routes are different in the town centre as well.

But the timetable is all blue.

"Could do better" would be fbb's school report on the leaflet.

The ride is OK, but nowhere as good as that at Scarborough. At Flamborough, you really only get "views" at the very end. 

But for luxologists (fbb thinks he has invented the word) you do get the two lighthouses. New(er) ...

... and old.

There aren't any lighthouses where our blog takes us tomorrow!

 Next Hammersmith blog : Friday 23rd April