RAIL FIRM'S GETTING THERE

The railway line through Brigg will be closed from sometime next month until June, so essential maintenance work can be carried out.
Presumably we can expect a Saturday bus service to be provided, picking up passengers at stations along the route, including Brigg, although no details have yet been revealed.
A stretch of embankment needs replacing in Brigg so the line will be able to handle heavy freight trains to, and from, the Immingham area. It's going to be a major job - and a very expensive one.
Currently the Brigg line is only open on Saturdays (chiefly for three Sheffield-Cleethorpes passenger trains in each direction) - unless problems crop up between Barnetby and Doncaster, in which case the track between Brigg and Gainsborough is brought back into use as a diversionary route.
However, in summer/autumn next year our line will be fully operational on other days of the week to handle freight trains. It's intended to run them through Brigg on a 24-hour basis.
Signallers are now being recruited to man the boxes on the line from Brigg to Gainsborough, via Kirton in Lindsey and Northorpe.
In response to the Brigg line reopening during the week, councillors here, and in the Gainsborough area, are hoping to persuade train operating companies to take a look at running additional Monday-Friday passenger services, linking us with Sheffield, Grimsby and possibly Lincoln.
A meeting of councillors and other interested parties is expected to be held early next year, with Brigg a likely venue.
The prospect of being able to get weekday trains to Sheffield will certainly appeal to shoppers who have been unable to get a direct ride to the giant Meadowhall complex since the withdrawal of the Stagecoach 909 bus service through Brigg.
Although long and heavy freight trains are good for the UK's 'carbon footprint' as they can move huge amounts of coal and other bulky items for relatively little fossil fuel (compared with fleets of lorries), a number of Brigg residents will be unhappy at the prospect of clanking wagons and big diesels rumbling through at all hours of the day and night.
People who have bought houses near the line in recent years, thinking it was pretty much defunct, fear the noise and vibrations will affect the market value of their properties and make them more difficult to sell.
Householders living on the far side of the Bigby Road level crossing, or looking to go to and from Brigg Garden Centre, will also have to contend with delays at the gates, while trains trundle by.
The contrary view is the railway has served Brigg since November 1848 and the idea of reopening our line during the week for heavy freight has been extensively reported in the Scunthorpe Telegraph in recent years.
The matter has certainly not been kept secret by the railway authorities, who have been very open about their plans. Now, after many false hopes, the return of the Brigg line to round-the-clock working is not too far away.
We will keep readers of Brigg Blog and the Scunthorpe Telegraph's Tuesday Brigg Extra page in the loop, to use a railway phrase!