10:15.

We were greeted by a bright but frosty morning here in the Calder valley and I’ve decided to make the most of the sunshine by heading out for the day. The plan in to traverse the Harrogate loop, a railway line that runs from Leeds through Harrogate and Knaresborough to York, stopping off a few times on the way.

Right now I’m on Northern’s 09:58 from Sowerby Bridge, heading for Leeds. The service is worked by a 2-car Class 195 so it’s pretty full with plenty of prams and their occupants clogging the vestibules, on their way to God knows where. Thankfully, the motion of the train seems to have sent the kids to sleep as it’s blissfully quiet! I’ve managed to find an airline seat, plug in and set up the mobile office to begin today’s rolling blog. I’ll keep you all updated on my progress as time goes by, so feel free to pop back later.

11:10.

My trip into Leeds was both quick and easy. I had under 20 mins to make my connection which was plenty of time to breeze through the crowds to platform 0 where an ex-Scotrail Class 170 sat burbling away. These units haven’t had a full refurbishment so I’m now esconsced in the  former 1st Class section with 2+1 seating – and only me in it!

The service patrern on the loop has changed considerably since I was last here in November 2020. Now LNER run a 2 hourly service from Harrogate to London Kings Cross via Leeds rather than just a couple of trains a day. Northern used to turn back half their trains at Knaresborough, leaving the section from there to York with an hourly service. Now, nearly all trains run through to York. Gone are the old Class 143/153s too. The line’s now worked by 158s and 170s.

12:45.

I’ve stopped off at Harrogate to get a few pictures as the character of the line changes from here on. We’re back under the control of mechanical signalboxes abd semaphore signalling whose origins date back to the early days of the railways.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Cheers,

Paul