12th May 2026 “Railways of Humberside and North Lincolnshire Re-visited” by Dick Crane
Our 2025/26 season closed in fine style with accomplished speaker and historian Dick Crane giving us a fascinating tour of probably one of the lesser-visited areas of the national network – Humberside and North Lincolnshire.
We opened with a glorious image of Deltic No. 55003 ‘Meld’ on the Hull Executive and had good look around the Hull area with William Bell’s magnificent five-arch train shed at Paragon station, Dairycoates depot (including a lengthy line-up of newly-delivered D9500 series (later Calss 14) Teddy Bears – some of which never actually saw service!), Botanic Gardens and Alexandra Dock. After returning to Paragon with some delightful early 1950s views including C12 4-4-2T No. 67391 and D49 4-4-0 No. 62701 ‘Derbyshire’ departing the station, we headed up to Bridlington, stopping off at all stations en-route. Of particular note was Beverley’s Grade 2 listed overall roof and footbridge. 1959 was the last full year of steam operation on this line, the period being illustrated by K3 No. 61902 entering Bridlington from Scarborough and B1 No. 61074 at Market Weighton. A brief glimpse of the pre-nationalisation era was seen in the form of D49 No. 62744 ‘The Holderness’ at Bridlington in 1947.
A change of location then took place with a move to the Hull to Selby line, including Hull Trains class 180 Adelante units, a de-quadrupled Brough, the delightful North Eastern signal box at Broomfleet and Gilberdyke junction. After views of the station and swing bridge at Selby, a quick trip was taken down to Goole (although not on the line from Selby to Goole as lamented by Flanders and Swann in ‘The Slow Train’), including the remote Saltmarshe station. Dick’s description of the ‘skeletal’ station buildings at Goole as being ‘a bit disappointing’ was echoed by the audience!
Returning to Hull and a look at the former Hull & Barnsley terminus at Cannon Street, we then travelled along the Hornsea and Withernsea branches, both of which were closed on October 19th 1964.
We then moved across the Humber to North Lincolnshire, courtesy of the ‘Wingfield Castle’ ferry to New Holland Pier, and thence to Cleethorpes for some remarkable scenes of holiday traffic dating back to 1900. Plenty of excursion traffic was in evidence, with a good variety of locomotives including B1s 61192 and 61166, D11 ‘Director’ No. 62669 ‘Ypres’ and interloper Black 5 No. 44792 arriving from the Midlands. Dick carefully described the 100 lever ex-Great Central signal box and the busy carriage sidings at New Clee, full of excursion traffic.
Moving inland a little we visited Great Coates Sidings No. 1 signal box, which now sees little traffic, and then ran up the branch to Barton-on-Humber seeing BR Class 60 No. 60044 on coal from Immingham Docks. Thornton Abbey was summarised by Dick as ‘a bleak place’, whereas Barrow Haven was ‘a lovely place’! The former Grimsby and Immingham Tramway made a welcome appearance, including Car No. 14 which is now preserved at Crich. Wrawby Junction and its fine semaphore signals were duly observed, with the evening closing with views on the former East Lincolnshire main line down to Louth and the delightful Lincolnshire Wolds Railway.
The evening, and the season, closed at 9.50 pm with great thanks being expressed to Dick for a hugely enjoyable, well illustrated and narrated tour of Humberside and North Lincolnshire, and to Fixtures Secretary Michael Smyth for an excellent 2025/26 programme.