mikemeg

I have no doubt that the passenger numbers are increasing; both the service offered and the trains themselves are now excellent and certainly not at issue. I have no doubt that the customer facing team is dedicated and equally excellent. The one member of staff with whom I spoke, briefly, was polite and helpful. Indeed, he showed me the tile map of the North Eastern Railway system, proudly mounted on the station wall. As to knowledge of the railway, its history, its operating problems, the various government initiatives from Nationalisation, in 1948, onwards - the 1955 modernisation plan, the 1963 Beeching Report, etc. - and the impact on the railway and on the travelling public of those initiatives, then I have read them and occasionally written about those also, for various publications, beyond contributing to this forum. I also closely followed, on an almost daily basis, the building of an entirely new station roof at Pickering. A roof of the same vintage and architecture as that on Scarborough Station i.e. based on Pratt trusses with wood interior, slate tiling and with a central clerestory ventilator. Almost everyone who reads newspapers or watches TV News programmes is aware that the public finances are under enormous pressure and that organisations which depend, either wholly or partially, on those finances are equally under enormous pressure. Difficult choices will have to be made as to how and where those limited funds are deployed and, inevitably, there will be 'infrastructure casualties' due to lack of funding. We can only hope that when funding is available for the repair and restoration of the station roof at Scarborough, such funding arrives in time and is sufficient to restore the station to its former state. Cheers Mike

Without wanting to labour this discussion, Rob's comments about the lingering smell of diesel fumes, when alighting at Scarborough Station, are at the heart of this. As well as keeping waiting or alighting passengers dry, the roofs of the train sheds were designed and built to allow light into the station and allow the smells of smoke, steam and now diesel fumes to escape. By virtue of what Network Rail have done, the roof on Scarborough Station now does neither of those things. Light is prevented from entering the station and fumes and smells cannot escape from the station so the station has become dark and smelly; a very unpleasant place to be. It is a disgrace, thus making Network Rail a disgrace!! Ultimately, if not already, this will result in some folk choosing not to travel by train. So Network Rail are killing their own goose! Cheers Mike

Boris, Many thanks for the clarification. I did know that the 68's, after some problems, were banned from actually entering the train shed. Now, of course, both the 68's and the five coach trains which they were to pull/push have all been withdrawn from service. This after Trans Pennine Express built a new servicing depot on part of the site of the old Motive Power Depot to handle these trains. A facility which now lies unused!! I have talked, briefly, to one or two of the station staff - there aren't very many - none of whom have any idea what is happening or when anything might happen. As a resident of Scarborough and an occasional user of the rail service to York and beyond, I am utterly appalled at the state of this station. We have lost the travel centre; we very nearly lost the booking office and the whole thing looks run down, tired and forlorn. These once quite beautiful stations with their overall roofs are a working part of our industrial heritage, yet we neglect them and allow them to fall into disrepair. Similarly our country stations, where once flower beds and advertising posters adorned them, are now featureless, unmanned and dilapidated. All of this falls within the remit of Network Rail, which organisation seems completely unable to stem the decline on all but the principal London termini. Where is the money now made available from the cancellation of any further construction of HS2; where is the money available for 'levelling up' or is that purely for easing railway gradients? The trajectory of our railway infrastructure is toward 'third world' and the only query seems to be how quickly this state is reached. Cheers Mike

Paul, Thanks. I wasn't sure when but surely the issue is that the bl---y roof is still not fixed, so another windy night could see more glass dislodged. The Victorians, who built the station, would have had it fixed long ago. Network Rail, or whoever is responsible for the upkeep of Scarborough Station, have merely erected protective scaffolding in the seemingly vain hope that, at some indeterminate future date, the roof may be refurbished. In the meantime, the condition of the roof; its framework, its glazing, its woodwork will continue to deteriorate until the cost of repair becomes so great that it is considered uneconomic to repair. Then what! 'It is not programmed for this year - see posting above' is simply not good enough!! Network Rail, as custodians and managers of our railway infrastructure, are not good enough and should be replaced by a more competent organisation which responds, in timely fashion, to the needs of the railway infrastructure and maintains it accordingly. As I said, earlier, it is third rate, third class and decidedly third world; all of which would seem to apply to Network Rail!! Let's see what the newspapers make of this abject failure! Mike

Since this thread was started, way back in 2015, included among the hundreds of photos posted have been some dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Scarborough Station, through the years. So, just to bring the photos up to date, here's one taken today - July 10th, 2024. The entire interior of the station is wreathed in scaffolding and has been for over two years. There is no work taking place on the station fabric, so the paint continues to peel off the woodwork which is then showing signs of rotting. The threat of glass falling onto the platforms and travellers, from the roof clerestory, means that the whole of the underside of the roof is sheathed in netting. The station is dark, wet and a disgusting place to be. Supposedly a listed building and thus demanding that any repairs are done 'sympathetically', it seems that no-one knows when the repair work will begin nor who is responsible for meeting the repair costs, which must be escalating by the day. In short the whole situation is third class, third rate and third world and is just a disgrace but, seemingly, increasingly typical!! Cheers Mike

Just to highlight a few of the characteristics of the railways of East Yorkshire, though these photos do stray into North Yorkshire i.e. Scarborough, here are a couple of photos which highlight the amazing array of large signal structures which once abounded in this place. Some of these structures, which were actually iron lattice girder structures, lasted well into the eighties and one - the Falsgrave Signal Bridge - lasted into the twenty first century and still survives on the NYMR. When we were kids, watching the trains, we paid scant regard to the infrastructure of the railway; the signal boxes, the signals, the wayside stations, etc. Much of this infrastructure was largely unchanged from Victorian days and, quite naturally, it would always be there for later consideration. Of course, it would not always be there and successive waves of modernisation, rationalisation and just obsolescence would soon see it gone forever. So a couple of photos just to remind the viewer of what the railway once looked like! As a complete aside, as I approach octogenarian status, I wondered whether I could still produce the 4mm drawings of these structures, which I've occasionally done over the last twenty years. So I attempted the structure shown in the lower of these two photos, which once stood at the west end of Londesborough Road station platform, though I do have other, more detailed photos of this structure to provide the basic sizing data. So if anyone fancies modelling it, I have a 4mm drawing. Now to make a 4mm drawing of the structure in the upper photo of which, again, I have some more detailed photos. Cheers Mike

The B16's were fitted with 5' 8" 20 spoke driving wheels with a 13" crankpin throw. As far as I was able to ascertain, no manufacturer of 4mm model wheels makes a driving wheel of this configuration. I used an Alan Gibson 5' 8" 18 spoke wheel (LNER K3) with13" crankpin throw, which was the nearest I could find but is clearly not entirely accurate. Alan Gibson do produce a 20 spoke 5' 8" driving wheel but with a 10" crankpin throw. So the final choice is a compromise between the right no of spokes but wrong throw or the wrong number of spokes but the correct throw. Cheers Mike

Dave, Yes, in the photo we are looking at the rear of the running boards, where the upstand (approx. 1.25 mm) shows and that is the face which attaches to the solebars. This is where the brackets are attached, though I will post another photo to show the completed assembly within the jig. And yes, the slots in the upstand on the upper board and lower board give clearance for the axle boxes. The photo, above, has been changed to show the jig now accommodating two sets of running boards; one set for each side of the van. Two out of two correct; do you want to go for the bonus point to qualify for the raffle. Only joking; thanks for the interest, much appreciated. Regards Mike

LNER 20T BRAKE VAN 'TOAD D' After a bout of loco painting (J24 and J25) and some rebuilding of a garden wall, then time to return to the five LNER brake vans. The last things to be done are the running boards either side of the underframe; each of which consists of two parallel boards, around 6mm apart and fixed to the solebars by brackets which attach to both boards. To achieve the necessary parallel configuration and the correct spacing of the brackets I decided to adopt the same principle as I used for building the lattice signal gantries and bridges - make and use a jig. So out came the cardboard and a marking pen and a jig was developed to assemble these running boards. The photo below isn't the best resolution but, hopefully, illustrates the principle. The vertical markings are the locations of the brackets attaching the two boards together and to the solebars. Cheers Mike

LNER 20T BRAKE VAN 'TOAD D' With just a few handrails to be added then the last job will be the running boards on the four models which don't yet have them. All of these vans, as with almost all of my plastic kit wagons, have been weighted by adding some pieces of sheet lead under the body between the solebars just to give them a little more stability, especially when being pushed rather than pulled. So with two ex LMS brake vans and these five ex LNER vans, then those should give a varied representation of the 'back end' of freight trains circa 1950. The last van to be lettered and numbered has now been done, using the initial British Railways numbering scheme. These characters, which have to be applied individually, are even smaller than the LNER numbering - 3 inch for the running number (1.0 mm), 2 inch for the weight (0.66 mm) - and did take quite a time to do; though this time without using the magnifying glass! By the time I got to painting this one, I'd become tired of weathering wagons to represent the 'down at heal' state of the late forties/early fifties, so this one has only just come back from its British Railways repaint!! So, once this lot are done then I can get back to the locomotives though looking at my coaching stock, that's also a little meagre, so I can see 'a batch of Gresleys' being produced in the not too distant future. The railway fencing on the incline to the far side of the bridge is also in need of repair; so that will be done ere long! Cheers Mike

York, The First Away Day - part 4 York Firstly, I must apologise for the delay in completing this account of that first away day; some flu-like 'lurgi' affected me for a day or two before going as quickly as it came! Anyway, we arrived at York station and alighted from one of the bay platforms which are now the short stay car park. Almost immediately the hustle and bustle of this place was apparent with an overriding sense of trains everywhere. Though this station was probably no larger than Hull's Paragon Station the difference in activity was immediately noticeable. Now, even though I still have the notebook with all of the numbers written down, from that day, I don't propose to list them - too many to enumerate! We walked to the centre of the station and then over the footbridge as the first of the many Pacifics which we saw that day, appeared. One of A H Peppercorn's A2's - Hycilla - heading south. We had read the names of these various Pacifics, from the Ian Allan book; the classic horse race winners, the birds, the silver names, the officers of the LNER, the Walter Scott characters, the LNER constituent CME's, etc. but seeing one of these glorious machines proudly displaying its name was something entirely different. After an hour of sitting at the south end of the station and then walking to the other end and seeing the station pilots busying themselves moving coaches, seeing one of the Bristol to Newcastle trains arrive behind a Bristol Jubilee and various other trains, we were about to leave the station to 'attempt' the shed when a distant whistle attracted the attention of many of the spotters on the platform. They knew, from that sound what was approaching and, sure enough, one of the legendary 'streaks' rounded the curve at the north end and drew into the station. Silver King was the locomotive. It passed a southbound freight which had been stopped on one of the centre roads and came to a stop at platform 5. Like many of the Pacifics fitted with double blast pipes and chimneys, this locomotive made a sizzllng sound as it waited at the platform. On setting off, the locomotive slipped noticeably and it was many years before an ex-Gateshead driver told me why they slipped. This was done, deliberately, to encourage the mechanical lubricator to fulfil its lubricating purpose!! We left the station and walked through the road tunnel on Leeman Road, emerging by the workshop at the back of York shed. Looking through the windows of this workshop we could clearly see two Peppercorn A1's, Boswell and Balmoral - 60138 and 60140. We had already seen 60139 Sea Eagle on a northbound train, earlier that day. That day we didn't attempt to enter the roundhouse but we did proceed to the fence, further along Leeman Road, there to find a convenient hole in the fence and gain entry to the locomotive yard. York's locomotive yard, between the roundhouse and the coaling stage, must have been half a mile long and what a variety of locomotives it contained. V2's, B1's, B16's, K1's, K3's, D49's in abundance, along with Black 5's, 8F's, an unrebuilt Patriot, Jubilees and too many more to list. to be continued Mike

York, The First Away Day - part 3 The Line to York I guess the first thing to say, about this line, is that from Beverley to York it no longer exists. Various feasibility studies seem to have been done as to whether and how this line could be reinstated, though how serious any such plans were is open to question. Suffice to say that some stations were closed on 5/1/59 and the whole line closed to passenger traffic on 29/11/65. After leaving Hull the line passed the Ideal Standard works which, at that time, had sidings which were still in use. Onward to Cottingham, which station is still open and thence to Beverley, again which is still open, the line still exuded its NER heritage with some lower quadrant slotted post signals and the all over roof and cast footbridge at Beverley. Cherry Burton, Kiplingcoates were called at before coming into Market Weighton. This station was a junction with the Hull line and Driffield lines meeting at the east end and the York and Selby lines meeting at the west end. Passing through Pocklington, this station also retained its all over roof and cast footbridge and is now part of Pocklington Grammar School. Again, various aspects of their NER heritage were present at Fangfoss, Stamford Bridge, Warthill and Earswick stations before the line joined the Scarborough line before reaching Lendal Bridge. Every station, along the route, then still retained an operational goods yard and shed with a daily pickup goods which would meander along the line picking up and dropping off wagons at the various stations. Of course, none of these observations or reminiscences were made at the time; we merely saw the railway as a means of reaching York. Only in later life and with the benefit of the passing of time, of a host of black and white (and some colour) photographs evoking the memories, could these times and places be revisited from the recesses of the mind. So we arrived at York and what a place it was and still is. Imagine the initial reaction to the plan to build, what would then be one of the largest railway stations in the world, on a curve. As we rolled over Lendal Bridge, we caught sight of the first green engine of the day as it slowly made its way from the shed into the station. This was a named V2 - 60872 'Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry' looking every inch the thoroughbred which the V2's were. I'll finish this account of that away day in the next part, so I'll leave this one with a photo of Pocklington station as it looked in the mid 1950's and, apart from the signage, as it had probably looked for the previous half century or more. Cheers Mike

York, The First Away Day - part 2 Leaving Hull Paragon Station I suppose, in trying to tell a story using photographs to support the narrative, at certain points it's worth highlighting some of the aspects of East Yorkshire's railways which distinguished them from other areas. By 1922 almost all of the railways of East Yorkshire were under the auspices of the North Eastern Railway, soon to be absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway. One distinguishing feature of the NER (among many) was its propensity for signalling every conceivable movement using huge collections of signals mounted on a single structure. Most of these supporting structures were made by McKenzie and Holland of Worcester and in and of themselves, these structures were very impressive and handsome things. One such structure stood at West Parade, Hull, between Park Street and Argyle Street bridges. I'm not exactly sure when this structure was replaced but I believe it lasted into the 1950's. So immediately on leaving the platforms of Hull's Paragon Station or on approaching the station throat, until it was replaced, drivers were 'confronted' with this. Taking the left hand four dolls and from left to right, I believe they represented :- 1) The line to Selby and Doncaster which would cross Anlaby Road and Hessle Road before proceeding westwards, diverging at Staddlethorpe Junction; now Gilberdyke 2) The link to the H&B via the incline after Walton Street which diverged from the line to Beverley and beyond to York or Driffield. 3) The line to Hornsea and Withernsea, which would diverge towards Victoria Dock. 4) The entry to Botanic Gardens shed. This sequence was repeated on dolls seven to ten, again looking from the left. Cheers Mike And if anyone fancies making a model of this fantastic structure, then I have produced a 4mm scale drawing of it.

I've often dipped into this thread and been amazed at the incredibly eclectic nature of the photos and the extraordinary timescale over which they were taken and still they keep coming. Amazing, just amazing! So over 1100 pages, 27,000 + postings and 4.9 million views; easy to see why. Regards and thanks Mike

York, The First Away Day - part 1 Paragon Station One of the disadvantages of this site (and there are very few!) is that anything and everything which is destined for posting to the site is immediate! There is no way of preparing the posting, of iteratively creating and assembling the descriptions and the pictures, prior to finally posting the completed entity. Of course this is also part of the philosophy of immediacy which underpins the social networks, so beloved of current generations. So I must begin the recounting of this 'first away day' in full view of any readers (if any can stay the course of its preparation and evolving?). Anyway, that day in mid October 1958 began, as most rail journeys began for us, from Hull's Paragon Station. This station is still a large and extensive edifice but in 1958 it was enormous - see the photo below - with some fourteen platforms, extensive carriage sidings, coal drops and various locomotives engaged on moving passenger stock around the platforms and up to the carriage sheds towards Walton Street level crossing. All of that with the constant shuttling of locomotives between Botanic Gardens locomotive shed and the station. It was a very busy place! Despite Hull's importance to the railway, especially for the movement of freight, none of the large and prestigious classes of ex LNER locomotives were actually shedded there. We would ultimately learn that the mysterious letters and numbers painted at the very bottom of the loco cab, represented the reason why not; route availability of the line from Staddlethorpe to Doncaster prevented their use. So to see the famous named Pacifics and the equally impressive V2's - all with route availability RA9 - we had to travel to somewhere on the East Coast Main Line; Doncaster, Selby or York were the obvious places! So on that Saturday - actually October 18th - we boarded the 8.25 am train from Platform 8 or 9, which consisted of some of the then recently introduced Cravens diesel multiple units. Our fare was 4 shillings and 3d (pence), being half of the full adult fare of 8s and 6 pence. Seating ourselves in the front carriage, immediately behind the driving cab, we were assured of a "driver's eye view" of the journey to York. To be continued Cheers Mike