Nearing the end of rails to Ripon
Last train - Ripon to Melmerby
The line from Harrogate to
Northallerton closed to passenger
traffic in March 1967 - a Beeching
cut. Beyond Melmerby, a few miles
north of Ripon, the line closed
completely*. However, the section
from Harrogate (or, to be more precise,
Starbeck) to Melmerby remained in use for
freight. A daily trip working shunted the yard
at Ripon, then worked on to Melmerby, where there was an
MoD depot. The depot closed at the end of 1968 - so that the
trip on 31st December, to collect the last wagons, would be
the last working along that stretch of line.
I made my way down to the station with a school friend, and my
newly-acquired 35mm camera, to have a look at the last train
and perhaps take some photographs. The freight, headed by a
pair of then-new class 20s, had already arrived. We took a photo
of the locomotives standing outside the goods shed - I seem to
recall the crew were taking a break.
The crew were intrigued by our interest, and asked us if we
wanted to come up into the cab and take a ride - we didn't need
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
much persuasion. Neither did I when
asked if I wanted to have a go at
driving. (I did have to be reminded, a
mile or two along the line, that there
was a 30mph speed limit on the line
these days...)
I wondered, as we took the junction a little short
of the former main line junction at Melmerby,
whether we would have to leave the train when it entered the
depot. No problem - it was closing anyway. The regular driver
had taken over again for our entry into the depot, though I was
allowed to drive it back again to Ripon. So there it is - my claim
to fame! The locomotive depicted is, I believe, a Thomas Hill
"Vanguard" rebuild of a 1942 Fowler, MoD No 244 or 245. If it's
the former, it still exists, preserved at Haig Colliery museum.
The freight service to Ripon lasted a few more months, then it
too ended, and a year or two later the track was lifted. The fine
iron viaduct over the Ure is no more - instead, the Ripon bypass
uses the former railway route to skirt the City.
*The route was temporarily reopened after the July 1967 derailment at
Thirsk, which involved the class 50 prototype, in a Deltic bodyshell, "DP2".
31 December 1968
