DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Those services are there because otherwise the units would be sitting at Nunthorpe not doing anything. So after some prodding by interested parties of Northern and to keep them out of the way it was decided to run them as far as they could go down the branch in the time available. Danby and Battersby are as far as those trains can get before coming back to pick up their path from Nunthorpe.
As to usage? They cart fresh air! I was the only passenger on the train back from Danby when I did the afternoon service (we did have people using it to Danby however). And a friend and I were the only passengers on beyond Nunthorpe in both directions on the evening Battersby service. We did make friends with the conductor though seeing as she didn't have much else to do
Thanks, that's interesting info. So in principle those services are basically useless beyond Nunthorpe, so you could perhaps lose them, assuming they are not actually preventing anything else from running by sitting at Nunthorpe. Then I'd guess you could in principle build a chord to avoid the reversal at Battersby, not bother with building a replacement passing place, and you'd shave a moderately significant amount of time off the journey to Whitby while being able to keep at least the current service. That sounds like potentially a win to me. (Though obviously building a passing place somewhere else to allow a better service to Whitby would be preferable).