* A 103Mby, 2m16s stills video showing the R.H.T.T. action at Bridlington Station. As this is less than 3min long, the video can be viewed here and/or downloaded in the usual fashion..
One day after the pictures at Burton Agnes, on Thursday 7th November and north along the line at Bridlington Station, a good happenstance as it turned out as there had been a certain amount of trouble with the two locos... So, 'Action at Bridlington Station', and all to do with sand!
At the beginning of the video, the local service from here to Sheffield, can be seen leaving from the platform 6 line, with Northern class 155, 155345 ready to go on the 2R98 from, here to Sheffield. To the right of the platform 6 line is the now defunct line along what used to be platform 7, the latter now being used to support a palisade fence separating the station from the 'B&M' and 'Lidl' stores off to the far right. One or two of the new Bridlington, single-head, colour light signals can be seen about the place, replacing a raft of semaphores, swept away in the 2021 re-modelling of the lines and signals..
Whilst 155345 was departing from platform 6, today's RHTT was making its way along from the north on the single line section from Hunmanby and must have been just a mile or two away, heading for a stop here. Whilst that was happening, a north-bound DMU pulled into the station along platform 4, one of the hourly services from Sheffield, via reversal at Hull, and on to Scarborough. This is a Northern Rail class 158 DMU, 158845 on the 2h50m 1W43, service from Sheffield and it is now waiting briefly for the forward single-line section to be clear of the approaching RHTT which came into the station at 13:02.
This is now the end of the 5th week of running the RHTT working and, as per usual, after the first few days the set looks completely filthy having run around the rails from York over to Scarborough, south to Hull and then as far west as Hatfield & Stainforth, for reversal back to York for 22:33 in that evening. With the same two class 37s, as seen earlier this week, 37254, ex-D942, 'Cardiff Canton' leading today and 37116, ex-D6816, at the rear, operating the 3J51, East Yorks RHTT from York and is here seen coming alongside platform 5 at Bridlington Station.
After an almost 1 hour delay again leaving York, the same thing happening on Monday, the set picked up the hour by not waiting in Scarborough for their lunch-break presumably, but reversed and left on-time. As may be seen from the shots following arrival, the driver and 2nd man got out of the cab and started 'fiddling' with the 4 access covers to the locomotive sanders, on both locos. I politely asked what they were up to and he informed me that the sand was wet and wouldn't flow out onto the track when required. I asked if this was the problem with the 2 late starts on Monday, 50mins and today, 75mins, the answer was affirmative, so 'leaves on the line' has turned into 'cant get sand on the line'.! They were checking the situation on both locos for around 20mins, but couldn't have stayed much longer as the return Scarborough was already on-line and due 15 mins later. The whole proceedings however made for a good photo-session for me and the other 5 'enthusiasts' present..
Station Bridge. Something interesting?
After the DMU and RHTT had departed north and south respectively, the porter from the ticket office came along and asked us all to vacate platform 4 as he was shutting off the pedestrian bridge between the concourse and platform 4, for the rest of the day! Being an inquisitive sort, I asked why, was there any work going on which would prevent access, the answer was no! Instead I was informed there were only 2 other services from the south which used platform 4 and they were being diverted, wrong line of course, onto platform 5, odd that I thought. When I got back I took a look, there were a further 7, hourly services 1W44-1W50, from Sheffield to Scarborough, now all being diverted, so what's going on. After spending money on refurbishing the bridge and installing lifts for ease in pedestrian access, the bridge and lifts as well are being closed for half the day, beggars belief, or was I missing something?
Timings.
Friday, the following day's working came out of Thrall on time, but then halted, according to R.T.T. for 301mins in York Yard North but then seemingly was on-time at Malton, just an hour away along the track towards Scarborough. Later in the day, it ended up cutting out 2 hours worth of cleaning duties in the Hatfiled area where it usually reverses and ended up back at York Thrall, 2 hours early at 20:16. Go figure? Today, Monday 11th, its all back to 'normal' once more, the set having left 4 minutes early at 09:50 and currently on-time and in the Driffield area...
