Esk valley line closure

[Skipness]

The Esk valley line will be closed on the final weekend in March (to allow for the repair of a bridge damaged by a lorry strike).
This will result in some very circuitous journeys. For example to travel from Whitby to Glaisdale at around 9.00 would entail a 8.30 departure on a bus to Middlesbrough arriving 9.55, then 10.20 from Middlesbrough arriving Battersby 10.47, followed by a bus from Battersby at 11.00 finally arriving Glaisdale 11.40

It is just because of the difficulty of access to the Esk valley villages that prevented the line from succumbing to the Beeching cuts, unlike other lines into the town (although the coastal line to Loftus and Saltburn had closed pre Beeching). The normal weekday services carry a substantial number of school children from the Esk valley villages to Whitby.

 

[mm333]

If you leave Whitby 11 minutes earlier on the bus (at 0819), you get to Glaisdale in 36 minutes. Every service has a fast bus non-stop between Whitby and Middlesbrough and a stopping bus between Whitby and Battersby. According to the Northern timetable at https://d2cf7kiw5xizhy.cloudfront.net/images/timetables/bucket/middlesbrough---whitby-2161.pdf

 

[John Webb]

........It is just because of the difficulty of access to the Esk valley villages that prevented the line from succumbing to the Beeching cuts, unlike other lines into the town (although the coastal line to Loftus and Saltburn had closed pre Beeching). The normal weekday services carry a substantial number of school children from the Esk valley villages to Whitby.

It was put down for closure in the Beeching Report, but it seems strong local protests kept the Middlesborough-Whitby line open, and spurred the development of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway Preservation Society, formed just over two years after the closure of the Pickering line in 1965.