Anyone know why the flows to and from Leyland B Leyland has died off? Quite regularly there flow with GBRf that ran most days and also Freightliner to/from Tunstead which as also gone quiet.
I'm not sure, the most recent working of the MJA set GBRF were using was from Rylstone to Leyland as 6M98 on 23rd November, after which its only loaded workings have been a 6Z71 Rylstone - Scunthorpe on 29th November, and 6H97 Rylstone - Peterborough workings on 11th and 13th December.
spent a few hours at Doncaster today with only 1 movement of note through the station
I turned up at Doncaster (my local station) today to watch 6K01 Doncaster Belmont - Dalreoch pass through behind 37405 and 37254 on a rail discharge train (RDT). Doncaster might seem like a strange place to start a possession train heading into Scotland, but the RDT had arrived earlier in the morning on the trip from Scunthorpe (I think the 37s were required due to the Balloch branch not being cleared for 66s). I was only at the station for half an hour and saw two intermodals pass through as a bonus... it really depends when you go, the next freight wasn't until 6 hours later (this was a Saturday). Like Freightmaster says, definitely best to plan ahead based on an idea of what's running.
6K01 should be running back south tomorrow during daylight hours:
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:B15210/2023-12-17/detailed
There's a reasonable amount of freight through Doncaster station, but it's not evenly distributed through the day. Looking at Thursday 14th, I counted 36 freight movements in 24 hours (not including light engines). Between 9am and 11am there were six freights. Between 5pm and 7pm there were five freights. But in the the middle, between 11am and 5pm... only two! Those 36 movements break down as 17 intermodals, 8 aggregates, 4 infrastructure trips, 4 overnight biomass diversions via Brigg, 6N03 Jarrow tanks diverted via Brigg, and the bricks to/from Heck. These numbers are slightly inflated by the overnight Brigg diversions (of 6N03 and the 4 biomass) but not too bad overall.
Another thing to bear in mind at Doncaster is that the avoiding line is not far away. A ten minute walk from the station, following the main road over the north bridge (at the north end of the station, accessed through the bus interchange and up some steps) brings you to a good vantage point where you can stand on a pedestrian footbridge at a road junction and watch anything coming past on the avoider. These pics (not mine) show the view in each direction:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/79433172@N07/38957694891/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/79433172@N07/38241770294/
Maybe not that great for photography, and movements are sparse, but there are some interesting steel and coal workings which avoid the station. On Thursday 14th there was one steel and one coal train passing through within half an hour of each other around 15:30 (trains vary depending on day of the week, especially the steel trains to Hull and Immingham which are a little unpredictable, but if you're already at Doncaster you can keep an eye on what's running). Another location not far away is Hatfield & Stainforth, another place which can be good if you pick the right time, and desolate if you don't! Thursday 14th would have been fairly uneventful for much of the day, with the usual biomass trains, but between 15:30 and 18:00 you could have seen 2 biomass, 1 coal, the Wolves to Immingham empty steel coils, the empty tanks from Neville Hill to Lindsey and the Lackenby to Scunthorpe steel empties. Not an appealing place to linger in December, but OK in the summer!
Another consideration is that the main focus of traffic at Doncaster is actually a little to the south. Where the road bridge crosses the lines between Up and Down Decoy, a count of the trains passing underneath in 24 hours (on Thursday 14th again) expands to 60 movements! Admittedly this is inflated by 6 of the Iport intermodals passing through in both directions to run round on the goods at Hexthorpe, but you could also add on the occasional shunt movements between the Wood Yard and Up Decoy or Belmont, which pass underneath. These movements break down as 39 intermodals, 4 infrastructure trips, 8 aggregates, 3 overnight biomass diversions via Brigg, 6N03 Jarrow tanks via Brigg, 1 coal train via Brigg, and the return Plasmor bricks from Heck.
There would have been a slight lull at lunchtime, but 13 movements between 08:00 and 13:00 (2 of which are the same train passing twice, so make that 11), or 14 movements between 15:00 and 20:00 (1 of which is the 4L00 passing twice, so 13 in total) is not too bad... as long as you don't mind containers! It's on a busy main road, so not the nicest place to watch trains for too long, but there are wide footpaths, the parapet isn't ridiculously high, and it's OK if the weather is reasonable. There should be regular buses from the interchange (by the station) down to Lakeside Shopping village, which is close to the bridge. As a bonus there are usually various GBRF locos stabled here, sometimes including a 69 or 60, and you get a view of either Down Decoy sidings or Up Decoy yard, depending which side of the bridge you are on. I've seen over a dozen locos at this location on a bank holiday weekend. The view in each direction (not my pics):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanpadley/40760122533/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanpadley/32536503662/
The only recent traffic losses through Doncaster that come to mind are the daily lunchtime spoil/waste train from Rossington to Roxby, and the weekly Lindsey to Ipswich tanks. On the plus side the Hartlepool tunnel segment trains are routed through, the southbound 4X51 passing around 10pm if I can summon up the energy to leave the house and brave the cold one of these days...
www.railwaygazette.com
www.realtimetrains.co.uk
www.newcivilengineer.com
