BRIGG RAILWAY LINE REPORT FOR SATURDAY FEBRUARY 6

BY PAUL JOHNSON, FRIENDS OF THE BRIGG & LINCOLN LINES

Weather-wise it was horrendous on Saturday. Added to this the East Coast line was shut near Grantham for engineering works.
It was quiet on the Brigg Line, however we do expect this since the timetable is formulated for seaside travel and not a fine balance across the route.
Despite having little money FoBLL have designed a simple fare station guide which has been placed in every station between Sheffield Midland and Brigg and Habrough, Grimsby Town and Cleethorpes. The design tells customers what is the adult fare from that station to stations on the Brigg Line. It will be updated by FoBLL / GRaB in May when hopefully there is a review of fares again. This has been added to the A5 Brigg Line posters that have been printed by West Lindsey District Council and TPE for parts of the route. 
Two customers boarded the 0803 Sheffield Midland to Cleethorpes service at Retford Low Level on Saturday and asked for a Duo ticket to Cleethorpes. The Link 1 guard advised them that this offer had been withdrawn and also highlighted that with Retford been a manned station they should have gone to the ticket office first. This was the first time these customers had travelled on this route and bemoaned there being no signage on Retford station saying they had to use the ticket office.
The 1601 Sheffield Midland to Cleethorpes / 1832 Cleethorpes to Sheffield Midland was allocated a 3 car 144 unit. This seem to baffle everyone as it was a very quiet day. A meeting with Arriva last week highlighted the issue of the family-friendly Class 150s being allocated to the first Eastbound / Westbound service.
Elsewhere, the Brigg Line debate has been raging on the social media, along with how Lincolnshire suffers from lack of services & customer focus investment. Looking at the railway system as a whole it's quite clear that the Brigg Line was left to die over a number of years compared to other seaside routes. Whitby, Saltburn By Sea, Scarborough, Filey, Bridlington, Morecambe, Blackpool and Southport all have " proper " services where the Brigg Line does not. After a number of railway debates in the House Of Commons recently about different areas we shall be pressing Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes MP) for a debate about semi rural/seaside lines as the situation cannot go on.
Heavy rain meant sadly meant the Brigg station area was a mudbath again. This is now putting people off using the station, more flytipping was reported. However, it has been noted that a CCTV bracket still remains on  North Lincolnshire Council's Hewson House building. We will be pressing NLC to attach the CCTV camera again at this location and point it down Station Road to catch the perpetrators.
Some pictures from a wet and windy Saturday can be viewed here