Ever since I can remember, the trip from Whitby to Middlesbrough via train has always caught my attention when it gets to Battersby.... going forwards into Battersby Station, then back the way it came to go into the loop towards Middlesbrough via Great Ayton & Nunthorpe, etc.
Then Google invented
Google Earth +
Google Maps, and a few years after that upgraded the local aerial imagery to a standard that made it actually possible to see things.
Looking at the
area around Battersby Station, I saw evidence of a dismantled Railway line ploughing onwards from Battersby heading in the general direction of Stokesley & Stockton, etc. I bit of further web searching found the answer to what it was on Wikipedia... the old
Picton - Battersby LineFairly quickly I started to see potential in re-opening it, for instance:
- The line would
spit out on the lines from
Stockton &
Middlesbrough that join onto the
East Coast Mainline.
The old line appears to loop northwards up towards
Yarm, Stockton & Middlesbrough.
If the line was re-instated, and connected via a Y-Shaped junction, it would enable a direct link down towards
Northallerton, where the vast majority of
North Yorkshire County Council seems to be based, and onwards to a much wanted direct railway link to York other than that mentioned in the
Pickering South idea mentioned in an earlier post on Real Rail Improvement ideas.
It would also enable more trains to go down to Whitby, as mentioned in the idea to
return the Esk Valley Line to double track in certain places.
Not only that, but if you look at the existing line in to Middlesbrough which then provides the main railway links on the existing
Esk Valley Line & rail route down to
Redcar & Saltburn +
Boulby Potash Mine... the only way in & out of it currently is a
Bridge over the River Tees between Thornaby & Stockton. Re-opening this line would provide a back-up form of access should unforeseen circumstances put that bridge out of action.
It would also link-in with a couple of other ideas I've yet to post about.
Policy Page 
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Re-open the Picton to Battersby Railway line - Real Rail Improvements (Read 23886 times)
