The Scarborough Flyer

Fragonset Charters - Saturday 9th September 2000

A review from Mark Sutton.

This was my first Delic hauage for 19 years as I am a born again rail fan from the late 70's early 80's. It went something like this, "darling - do you fancy a day at the seaside?".

We found ouselves at Derby station (£4.00 parking all day in secure car park adjacent to the sation - good value in my book) which somehow seems busier than I remember, although there were too many HST's and DMU's for my liking. D9000 arrived looking, superb in green, five minutes early which seemed to set the scene for the day as the paths we were allocated were very slack. All the memories of the East Coast Main Line in 1981 came flooding back as we took our seat in the second coach from the engine. With the window of the mark 1 coach quickly opened, we were treated to a symphony as we climbed up towards the pennines and Sheffield along the Midland Main Line.

Just outside Sheffield, we were held at a red signal for 20 mins to allow a Virgin HST, First North Western Pacer and a Trans Pennine Express Sprinter to pass.

As we left Sheffield and headed up to Nunnery Junction, we had just come out of the tunnels and were treated to the highlight of the tour for me when the driver went full throttle and treated us to a smoking that would please any steam fan.

We headed for York via Pontefract and passed a class 60 and 66 at Ferrybridge with photographers perched on fences, trees, bridge parapets etc - was this January 2nd 1982 again I thought. Once we reached York, the flashlights were popping like crazy within the confines of the station and we felt like celebreties although the real celebrety was a the front sounding magnificent under the roof.

We were soon off again as we curved off on the Scarborough via Malton line and as we accelerated through the small cutting past the river, the twin exhausts were fetching the leaves off the trees like it was autumn. Again people were scattered along the lineside snapping away but as we approached Scarborough station, there were literally hundreds of people lining the retaining walls on each side of the approach to the platforms.

Time to spend a few moments studying D9000 before setting off for the beach as the weather seemed to be improving all the time. D9000 was looking very oil stained but sounded as good as I can ever remember - a tribute to the straff that maintain her.

Upon arrival back at the station, I became aware that only one engine was running, the driver explained that they had managed to get through 400 gallons on the outward trip and it was their intention to run on one engine as far as York as the line speed on this section was ok for one engine running. I wasn't too bothered as I was now at the back of the train.

We left on time and meandered our way back to York passing a Grid on a MGR train at FerryBridge (a rare sight these days). The reception at York was similar to on the outward journey with flashlights a plenty. The second engine was started and off we went towards Sheffield. Probably the most depressing part on the jouney for me was as we passed through Rotherham Masborough station which used to be such a pretty station with it's ornate canopies and now is derelict.

As we passed the stub of the line to Tinsley and headed towards Nunnery Junction, I got talking to a fellow passenger who was due to go on the Pathfinders tour over the remains of the Woodhead route a few weeks later and I remember all the times we were diverted via Darnall, Woodhouse and Shirebrook when there was engineering works on the Midland Main Line south of Sheffield.

As usual, we were well ahead of time and were stopped short of Sheffied for a short while. The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful as it was now getting dark and as we got off the Train at Derby, the were a few minutes available to savour the Twin Napiers and reflect on a very enjoyable day, until D9000 set off heading south to head north.

For those of you into timings I have produced a matrix below :-

Mark Sutton

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