31st March 1997

Pathfinder Tours
The Scarborough Maid

Route : 1Z37 throughout

Notes :
(1) Route confirmation required.
(2) 37248 & 37332 on rear.

Source : Andrew Wilson
(Joined and left train at York)

Tour Review
(by Mike Broom)

Well, the day started with the usual "what's on it?" questions...and for once nearly everyone came up with the same answers. We were stood at York waiting for the beasts to turn up, (and waiting for John to stroll in...) They turned up on time, 37332 in Coal livery and 37248 in Mainline Blue. We were hoping to get a heavyweight pair, just to see what Hull said when we tried to take them up to Scarborough.. The line is only passed for Class 20's (supposedly) so I think a heavyweight pair would have been a no-no.. That was why the Grid didn't do this section..

Ian had a claw back on us all with 248 (how he's missed it before I do not know..)

Anyway, we had the run-round at York so the 37's could bolt onto the Disney genny van..

The run out was nothing special, being routed via Sherburn to Selby.. Ian wanted to turn left just past Selby and go back to York via the old road (despite the fact it is now an A road..). The Anlaby Curve in Hull was scratched for the year, despite it being another "closed" section of track... The run up "the branch" was steady, only slowing because of a level crossing just north of Beverley..

We stopped at Brid briefly while the token was given for the single line section. We were met there by the BTP, who obviously were a little surprised to see a few coachloads of "neds" bellowing at them.. Especially when you consider all they're used to there is 142's.. They's already had there "big" train of the day, when a 3 car scud turned up from Hull earlier in the day..

Our next stop was at Filey were we had a photo stop under the station canopy. This was actually not too bad a move although when we found out about it at York we thought "what a waste of time.." There were quite a few cameras out, despite it taking about five minutes to get off the train through the front 3 coaches.. On leaving Filey, I would imagine that the sleeping baby in the pram on the station would not have been sleeping after we left!! The driver let rip under the roof, with a pretty impressive start.. Next stop Scarborough.

Scarborough was reached on time, so a saunter down to the sea-front was in order to kill time. I (and a few others) wasted a few quid in the arcades.. Then the struggle back to the top began. Scarborough is such a pain with the climb to the station. Anyway we turned up at the station to see the grid bolted onto the train and the tractors still bolted on.. Top and Tail was the order of the day to save on paths for the light engines. I'm sure the 37's helped 56078 to start the train out of Scarborough as the speed we pulled out was rather impressive for a grid on it's own..

Anyway the only thing different from the usual non-stop Scarborough - York run was the fact that we did the platform road at Malton instead of the usual through road. Mind you that line looked severely under used judging by the brownness of the rail. Arrival at York was again on-time (what happened to the usual tight railtour timings where the train was late at every shack??) and we (Andy, Ian John and myself) bailed at York and went home.

Summary, yet another pleasant saunter with no blistering performance (apart from the Scarborough start)

Mike Broom.

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