'THE BLACKBERRY LINE'

By Mark Waudby

Part Two - Since Preservation

This article is reproduced with permission and was first published in 'The Railway Magazine' October 1999

 

Freight traffic continued but this too declined and by 1981, Yorkshire Grain Driers Ltd, at Dunnington, was the only regular freight customer. By now far more money was being made from the rents of the properties the company owned than from freight carried on the line. The railway was also in need of major overhaul - some of the rails were originals from 1913 - so the shareholders voted to close the line and become solely a property company ( a situation which continues to this day)

The last train to run was a farewell special on September 27th 1981.............

However, that was not the end for the Derwent Valley Railway, British Rail used the sidings and the station building at Layerthorpe until the Foss Islands branch closed in 1989. Much of the former Derwent Valley line was still in situ, or had been sold on for further development, except the half mile of line west of Murton Lane station, which had been taken over by the Yorkshire Museum of Farming. (Whose Murton Park site was next to the line). 'Churchill', one of the shunters of the former 'Yorkshire Grain Driers Ltd' at Dunnington had traversed the line and was donated to the museum.

In 1985, the Light Railway Order was transferred to the Yorkshire Museum of Farming's section of Line. The rest of the post 1973 route towards York lay derelict until 1992 when, along with the Foss Islands branch line, it was converted into a public footpath and cycleway by Sustrans.

East of Murton, there is now little to show that a railway ever ran there at all. The course of the line can (with some difficulty) be followed as far south as Wheldrake, but south of there, nature has reclaimed the line altogether.

Preservation efforts really began to take off after the Great Yorkshire Preservation Society moved it's base of operations from the site of the old NER Starbeck steam shed, near Harrogate, to the Yorkshire Museum of Farming in August 1990.

Since then our members have carried out considerable restoration work on the line and built up our collection of locomotives and rolling stock.

History came full circle in 1993 when the we were given permission to operate under the name of 'Derwent Valley Light Railway', so ending the 12 years of obsolescence for the famous name.

The biggest civil engineering project undertaken to date has been the movement and re-erection of the former DVLR Wheldrake station building, which had become a bungalow but had been standing empty for 20 years when the railway obtained it in 1991. The original site of Murton Lane station was slightly further west, on the other side of Murton Lane, where 'Clanceys' scrap yard is currently operating. The current site of the station was a field before we arrived, and everything that is seen has been built up on site. The station building was dismantled into many pieces at Wheldrake and transported to our site, where it was reconstructed on new foundations.

Also reconstructed at Murton on our site is the former 'Muston' signalbox, which was originally from the Hull - Scarborough line, between Bridlington and Filey, on the A165 road. This now controls all our signals and pointwork, using the original seven lever and gatewheel lever frame that was installed at Muston. It is a little known fact that the base of this box is built of bricks of Starbeck shed's engine servicing and ash pits!

The limits of our operating are constrained by the fact that we are hemmed in by a road at either end of our running line. There is a stretch of trackbed between us and the beginning of Sustrans cycleway into York, which could one day see trains again. This is will only happen if funds can be found, but more so, if more volunteers can be found to help us further our ambitions of preserving more of the former Derwent Valley Light Railway.