We walked down to Brigg railway station on Saturday and stayed to record the arrival of one of the six trains a week using our facility on what was once the mainline of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway.
On a beautiful autumn afternoon, the 13.25 arrival from Sheffield to Cleethorpes pulled in a few minutes late – a two-car unit, not just one.
The conductor/guard stepped onto platform one, observed no-one getting on, or off, and signalled for the driver to pull away again.
Sadly, there was not a single fare-paying passenger in either carriage.
It’s very much a chicken and egg situation now. Without a worthwhile service – Brigg gets three trains each way, only on Saturdays – it will never attract additional passengers.
Yet no company in its right mind is going to provide a service Mondays to Fridays, and Sundays, based on current passenger numbers, or run more trains on a Saturday, for that matter.
Sadly, many people in Brigg do not even know we have passenger trains on Saturdays.
Surely, rather than operate trains that are completely empty, it might be an idea to run a special marketing campaign one Saturday, offering free return rides to Cleethorpes or Grimsby for interested Brigg people, as a way of publicising the service.
How about after they finally get the station upgrade completed?
On the question of station repairs...just like Brigg Blog, town councillors observed workmen arriving to improve the town’s railway station, then depart with little carried out.
“Work seems to have stopped,” Coun Penny Smith told the council’s monthly meeting in the Angel Suite. Town Mayor Coun Ben Nobbs described how some areas of platform requiring attention had merely been covered over. “It looks a bit like a patchwork quilt,” he suggested.
You can see one of the "covers" on the right of the picture above (double-click on the image to enlarge it).
If they ran in summer only, then they could double up the Saturday service to six trains a day. Spaced every two hours, this would be a bare minimum service, but probably usable. The cost implications would also (hopefully) be quite low, given that no extra trains are running.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this is possible, but it at least offers a way out of the problem.
How about some of those handcar, or pump-trucks?
ReplyDeleteRent them out to keep-fit groups - whizz up and down the line - zoom to Cleethorpes on a nice day - jog on the beach - have some fish and chips and then pump back to Brigg.
Instead, or as well as having a barra' race, someone could organise a time handccar handicap - Elsham and back pulling an OAP.
TRAIN OF THOUGHT - or A LINE OF ENQUIRY........part of the problem is many people forget that's there's a train service to he seaside, or Sheffield.
ReplyDeleteOnce at the detination, can one get back?
Perhaps the TIC could display the train times......if there's more demand, there will be more trains.