Esk Valley Community Railway Backs Train Use for Whitby School Pupils

The Chair of the Esk Valley Community Railway group, is advocating for the increased use of an existing train service to transport pupils from villages in the Esk Valley to Whitby School.

Alan Williams, believes that the current school train, which has served children along the Esk Valley for many years and continues to do so for pupils from other stations, could be utilised by students from Danby and Castleton to travel to and from school in Whitby.

Mr. Williams suggests that pupils from these villages "could" travel on the train. His comments come following changes to North Yorkshire Council's transport policy, which means some pupils in Castleton and Danby no longer qualify for free bus transport to Whitby School because it is not their nearest option. This policy shift, intended to address a £48m budget shortfall according to the council, has led to "calls to reinstate a school train service" and concerns about the ability of local children to access Whitby secondary school.

Mr. Williams highlights that a school train service already exists and could be used by pupils from these villages.

"For many years, , there has been a school train all the way along the Esk Valley and there still is today for the children from other stations.

So we would be delighted to have school children back on the train. It's the safest way to get them there and back. We never quite understood why North Yorkshire Council diverted some of the children who used to be on the train from those two stations onto a bus, which then paralleled the train all the way into Whitby.

It doesn't seem to make any sense either financially or environmentally.  Many of the parents say, why can't my children travel on the train anymore?

And our short answer is they could."

Alan Williams also noted the importance of the existing school train to the Esk Valley lines financial viability and the fact that the entire line's timetable is based around ensuring the school service lines up with Whitby's school day.

"It is the running of the school train that dictates the rest of the timings of the trains because they have to run at that particular time.

So it, it is a, an important part of the s valley line. And of course it's also   contributes financially to the wellbeing of the line.

If children want to come back on the train or North Yorkshire Council want to put them back on the train, we'd be delighted.

And of course, if children have no longer can get free travel, they could still use the train. But and there are actually northern nowadays provide quite good discounted fares for school children. So I very much doubt that they could get there cheaper by bus.

Looking ahead, Mr. Williams also pointed to upcoming improvements to the train service that could benefit older students, saying that Northern is expected to introduce a new early morning commuter service in December of this year. 

"That's more or less promised by Northern for introduction in December of this year. And for many years we've been pushing for an early morning. Commuter service. 

This new service will start from bit me about half past seven.  Still gotta have a time confirmed  and will run  to Middlesborough and then along the Durham coast up to Newcastle  the great thing about that is parents often said to us it's fine you're providing  a train to get them to school. But when they get to the age where they wanna go off to college or university or whatever they can't do it.

There's, they've either gotta go buy a car or some other form of transport. So we're hoping that by providing this train , it'll be helpful for further education."

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