Tuesday, May 10, 2016

FASTER TRAINS COMING TO THE BRIGG LINE


The new timetable for the Brigg railway line will see faster trains from the provider, Northern.
Having compared the current timings with those operating from May 17, we reckon Brigg folk will have four  minutes longer to enjoy the seaside delights of Cleethorpes.
Our thanks go to Twitter's @Grailbus who highlighted the availability of Northern's newest timetable and added: "That includes faster journeys on the Brigg Line."
We haven't spotted any additional trains to the three each way, Saturdays-only service.
However, quicker trains are definitely a positive step.
Trains will leave Brigg (nearside platform) for Cleethorpes at 0922, 1327 and 1724.
Trains to Sheffield from the far platform (over the new footbridge) will be at 1147, 1553 and 1908.
View the full timetable are other important travel information here
Our friends at the Friends of the Brigg and Lincoln Lines may wish to elaborate on this brief posting. If so, we'll bring you their thoughts at a later date.
It was suggested some months ago that refurbished former London Underground stock might come to the Brigg line.
That hasn't happened - so far. But having ridden on some overland on old Underground stock while on holiday in the Isle of Wight we can confirm that they are capable of good speeds.
Our picture shows a passenger train in 2015 at Brigg station when the old footbridge was still in place.

1 comment:

David Barrett said...

Not faster, but certainly, in some cases, quicker. The principal changes involve the first pair of trains: i.e. the current 08.03 Sheffield to Cleethorpes and 11.10 Cleethorpes to Sheffield, both of which have accumulated excessive time allowances over and above what would be reasonably expected. In the case of the first train the allowances have been shuffled about a little making a connection at Barnetby for Lincoln possible and with a creditable journey time of just fifty minutes: Brigg dep. 09.24, Barnetby arr. 09.34 - dep. 09.39, Lincoln arr. 10.14. The return journey being: Lincoln dep. 14.53, Barnetby arr. 15.26 - dep. 15.48, Brigg arr. 15.53; slightly longer than the outward journey but still reasonable at one hour, with around four and a half hours in Lincoln at £11.80 for an off peak return. The 11.10 Cleethorpes to Sheffield has been re-timed to depart at 11.14 but will reach Sheffield nine minutes earlier than at present due to the removal of superfluous allowances which currently translate into a long station stop at Gainsborough Central waiting around for nothing much to happen. The remaining four trains are largely unaffected as they were not afflicted by the same problems as the two described earlier. It has taken around two years to get these changes to happen so I wouldn't hold out much hope for further more extensive enhancements any time soon; besides which Northern will have bigger fish in the fryer with the general expansion of its offerings in the more densely populated areas within its fiefdom rather than play around with the more peripheral routes. Sadly the "Friends" group has now disbanded but the "Gainsborough Rail and Bus Users" people will continue advocacy for the line pending the formation of a formalised "Community Rail Partnership" to Include both this route and the Barnetby - Lincoln line also. More worrying is the near collapse of the Brigg Line's main reason for being: coal, without which the route may be in danger of sinking to its previous level of being closed all week with just a few Saturday trains using an increasingly decrepit infrastructure waiting for the axe to fall when some structure or another becomes unstable and unsafe without unjustifiable sums of cash being spent to rectify the deficiency, ultimately leading to closure on health and safety grounds. This will need watching very closely.