14th December 2019 · ‘Railways in a Yorkshire Landscape’

Presenter: Stephen Gay

Stephen Gay is always a welcome visitor to the West of England branch and on 14th December he paid his eighth visit since 2001 to present “Railways in a Yorkshire Landscape”.

This talk basically gave us a comprehensive look at the railway from Doncaster to Hull with slides taken in the last 20 years or so, including views of a variety of trains at all of the stations and passing the many signal boxes, most of the latter having since closed due to a resignalling scheme. We saw the landslide at Hatfield & Stainforth and paid a visit to Goole docks as well as seeing views of the many river and canal crossings in the area. As always with Stephen’s shows, we also saw scenes from near the railway, including examples of industrial archaeology.

The line from Selby to Gilberdyke was also covered, hence among the many anecdotes we learned of the lady who had an annual season ticket to take her from Wressle to Hessle!

Most of the photos were taken in glorious light; indeed we were impressed by how much sunshine they get in this part of Yorkshire!

Many of the audience may have travelled over these lines, but this was a welcome chance to appreciate them in greater detail and the show is recommended to other branches