|
Guisborough looses its rail link
 |
Then in 1968 - Two lonely figures stood at the end of the platform silhouetted against the darkening sky. Sadly they waved as the last passenger train from Guisborough Station disappeared. Back over the deserted rails echoed the goodbyes of scores of passengers leaning from the windows.
Edward Leach, the Guisborough stationmaster and his wife Peggy, made a fitting tableau to end a proud era which started at Guisborough just 100 years ago.
“I didn’t think people could be so sentimental over diesel engines” said Mrs Leach.
|
We had gathered there early that Saturday evening and we stood around talking quietly almost embarrassed by the atmosphere of sentiment in the air.
More passengers began to arrive, people like Mrs Milburn of Hutton Hill Farm Guisborough, who admitted she just wanted to travel on the last train., and Miss L E Stephenson of Oak Road Guisborough who had used the line daily. “ It’s the bus for me after today which means I will have to leave earlier and I’ll get home later.
Mr T.W Clapham, aged 72, a retired railway man had come all the way from his home in Ripon Drive Darlington to make the last journey. “It will be a very sad one” he said.
Next to arrive were two Eaglescliffe boys armed with a tape recorder and cameras to make a record of the last journey. They travel around the region’s stations making recordings for
posterity.
The train pulled in on time, disgorging scores of enthusiasts who joined the milling throng before embarking for the return trip to Middlesbrough.
Driver Harry Thompson, from the Thornaby depot, who has travelled the line for the past ten years, made his way up front. His guard Richard Bytheway who had spent 16 years on this service said ruefully: “ If as much enthusiasm as this had been shown in the past there would have been no question of closure but it was the closing of the Whitby line that crippled Guisborough”.
Then it was all aboard, Edward Leach blew the final whistle and stood silently watching the last train disappear from view. Silently he walked to the station entrance as Jack Bulmer the porter turned out the lights for the last time.
Together they tore down a poster advertising winter rail schedules, then they closed the gates and sadly walked away, leaving the station that had died to the ravages of natural decay.
This article originally appeared in the August
1998 issue of Now & Then
Magazine
|
