'The End of the Line' - a poem

[Rail Rover]

My aunt has recently unearthed a cut-out from an undated 'Driffield Leader' magazine being a poem my late Uncle wrote many years ago about the Malton & Driffield Railway. You may be interested to read it:

The End of the Line.pdf

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[andybat48]

Interested Phil. This is a great poem. And nice to see another member of your family has contributed to our lines history without even knowing anything about it. I presume he is no longer with us?

[Rail Rover]

Interested Phil. This is a great poem. And nice to see another member of your family has contributed to our lines history without even knowing anything about it. I presume he is no longer with us?

He died about 9 years ago Andy.

[cowlamprincess]

Fantastic poem Phil, thanks for sharing it. We should have it on one of the boards on site.

[andybat48]

I'm sorry to hear that Phil. I have printed a copy off and am going to laminate it and it can go in the coach.

[Rail Rover]

This article was all I could find about the demise of the M&DJR in the "Railway Observer" of 1958:

There are some other interesting local(ish) points.

[Rail Rover]

Here is an article in the same book about the Hull & Barnsley Railway's demise, for those who are interested:

H&BR.PDF

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[andybat48]

This gives us a good idea of how things were and why this line had to go. But this is also a common factor for most of the lines even under the Beeching cuts had to end. You can't run a railway on nothing. Coal was a big feature of the H& B and most of the lines that disappeared around East Yorkshire all had one thing in common, it was cheaper to transport by road as the stations on most lines were not close enough to make it a viable option any longer.

[eyersey468]

I agree, I suspect a lot of the lines that closed between 1963 and 1965 would probably have gone anyway if the Beeching report hadn't been written