Goods Traffic

The major port of Hull and the extensive marshaling yards at York generated heavy through freight traffic between the two centres and though quite a bit went via Selby, the Market Weighton line had its share.

Through freight from Hull consisted mainly of imported cocoa for the York confectionery factories, petrol from the Hull refineries, fish and imported timber in considerable quantities, as well as a variety of general merchandise. Traffic not destined for York was usually heading north. In the opposite direction it included various manufactured goods, coal, steel for export and components for marine repairs.

Most trains were of the mixed general goods variety, loose coupled or only partially fitted with continuous brake. There was also at least one fast fitted freight each way a day; the 3.20 PM from York was a regular express goods which ran almost unaltered for 30 years. Continuing almost up to closure, it even ran on summer Saturdays when it formed the return working for the locomotive off the Hull to Edinburgh express passenger.

Freight Train Departures from Hull 11 July to 25 Sept 1927 :- 8.25 AM Hull Goods dep, York via Beverley, B Mineral Class, run if required; 6.00 PM Hull Goods dep, York via Beverley, A Fish Class; 6.10 PM Hull Goods dep, York via Beverley, B Cattle Class, Monday only; 8.30 PM Hull Goods dep, York via Beverley, B Goods Class; 9.00 PM Hull Goods dep , York via Beverley, A Goods Class, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday only;

Another express working was an evening fish train from Hull. Consisting of five or six vans hauled by a class D49 4-4-0, it ran until about 1958 when it appears to have been combined with the 7.30 PM passenger train.

During World War II the line assumed considerable strategic importance carrying supplies for the Russian Front which were shipped from Hull, as well as munitions to airdromes in the Pocklington and Beverley areas. Another unusual wartime traffic was large quantities of locally-grown beetroot from Pocklington for bottling.

Local goods traffic, prosperous from the start, consisted mainly of agricultural produce and supplies, coal and coke. Livestock was also carried in considerable quantities, as were animal feeds from the mills at Pocklington and Stamford Bridge. There were also supplies for local traders, coal for the gasworks at Pocklington and Market Weighton and, in later years, products manufactured by local light industry.

As early at 1851, Mr. Foster, the Market Weighton station master, asked the YNMR for a 15/- a week clerk to help with increasing goods business.

Pocklington station accounts showed that in 1872 the station dealt with 448 horses, 368 dogs, 397 cattle, 9,260 sheep and 9,325 pigs. In the same year 10,708 parcels were received and forwarded, and 13,801 tons of other goods handled. Total revenue was £5,966 15s. 10d. against a wage bill of £487 1s. 1d. for 11 staff. Weekly wages were: station master 34/6d.; mineral agent, signalman and porter 18/10d. each; passenger clerk 5/9d.; goods clerk 7/3d.; and office cleaner 2/6d.

In 1913 Pocklington loaded 3300 tons of vegetables and 2302 tons of potatoes. By 1924 the vegetables had dropped to 163 tons but the potatoes had risen to 5033 tons. In 1913 Market Weighton loaded 1639 tons of barley, 564 tons of wheat and 847 tons of grain, most of this from thefields on the Yorkshire Wolds to the north of the town. In 1924 Beverley handled 5356 tons of cement, 4315 tons of oil cake, 2631 tons of grain and 775 wagons of livestock. The town was a tanning centre at this time and 1196 tons of 'tanning materials' were handled during 1923.

Livestock continued to be a major part of the line's business until the late 1950's brought the closure of local cattle markets and the growth of large farming companies with their own road transport. Up to then three or four cattle vans would be loaded and unloaded at Pocklington each market day. Smaller animals continued to be carried by passenger train, including dogs, rabbits and goldfish, which usually needed a change of water at Pocklington. Animals frequently arrived by the last train for collection by consignees from outlying villages and staff would have to stay back until they were contacted; otherwise it was a case of providing their guests with food, water and bedding for the night.

As livestock traffic diminished, the cattle docks found new uses as general loading docks. End loading bays, originally used for loading carriage trucks, proved especially useful in modern times for handling motor vehicles and farm machinery, while at Pocklington a scrap dealer also used the dock, which was next to his yard, for loading scrap into 16 ton mineral wagons for transit to the blast furnaces of a more industrialised region

Domestic fuels were, without doubt, the heaviest and most consistent local freight for over a century. But they were all incoming and in the 1960's the Beeching policy of concentrating this traffic on fewer large depots meant that the smaller depots lost their delivery service when merchants' licences expired. Merchants at Pocklington and Market Weighton held licences until well after closure, and they kept their depots stocked by bringing in fuel by road.

Being an agricultural area, much seasonal traffic was dispatched from all depots along the line. This included grain and potatoes from Mr. Musgrave's Market Weighton warehouse, carrots, and sugar beet which was so heavy that at the height of the season a daily beet train ran, even on Saturdays, often warranting an engine as large as a WD 2-8-0. It would ply the York-Market Weighton line picking up loaded wagons for the York factory and setting down empties.

In postwar years the carrot traffic grew to major proportions with heavy consignments from Market Weighton, Fangfoss and Warthill. This traffic became so heavy at the peak of the harvest season that the morning Hull to York express goods would stop to attach loaded vans, many of them destined for Glasgow. Sometimes the small yard at Fangfoss would not be able to cope and loading would be transferred to Pocklington.

A number of private sidings along the line provided lucrative freight business for many years. One of the most interesting was the quarter-mile branch to Pocklington flour mill. Starting in the Up sidings, it crossed Cemetery Lane, passed through a gate and crossed a field before reaching the mill where there was a runround loop, two sidings and a loading dock. As far as can be ascertained the branch was worked by the main line company's locomotives.

Another once busy private siding at Pocklington went to the works of the Pocklington Gaslight Company. It too began in the Up sidings and ran to coal drops in a brick shed. Again there appears to have been no shunter and it was a complicated process getting loaded wagons into the works, especially in later years when the track wasn't fit for main line engines. The pick-up locomotive would have to take wagons one by one on to the cattle dock road, which served as a headshunt, and place them on to the private siding which left by a trailing connection. Once they were all in place it would push them up to the works without having to traverse too much of the decrepit sidings. Empty wagons returned by gravity.

At Earswick one of the Down sidings extended through a gate to Hall's tannery where most traffic was incoming coal, though some finished leather was dispatched before the lorry age. By the 1960's there was little traffic but the tannery nevertheless outlived the railway. And at Market Weighton the Anglo-American Oil Company (now Esso) had a siding serving a petrol and oil distribution depot.

But the most fascinating and best known private source of traffic was the Sand Hutton Light Railway. Until its closure in 1932 it provided much interchange traffic at Warthill including inward coal, fertilisers, farm implements, general merchandise and livestock. Outgoing traffic was mainly farm produce such as carrots, potatoes, sugar beet, corn, hay, straw and livestock, and bricks and pipes from Claxton brickworks.

The Pocklington Co-operative Society had its own small warehouse alongside Pocklington goods yard from where it supplied its branches and delivery rounds by horse and cart, the bulk commodities arriving by rail, presumably from the Co­operative Wholesale Society in Manchester. The Co-op. depot closed in the 1950's when the Hull and East Riding Co-op. took over the local society but the buildings remained, derelict, for many years.

Freight Train Departures from Hull between 30 June to 14 Sept 1952 were:- 6.40 PM Hull Goods dep, York via Beverley, C Fish Class, Saturday only; 8.00 PM Hull Goods dep, York via Beverley, C Fish Class, Saturday excepted.

(There may also have been a milk train time during the years as an exworker recalls the first workings of the day starting at about 5:30 am with the milk and fish trains.)

Although road transport and changing railway attitudes to local freight saw a rundown of the smaller depots in the early 1960's Pocklington continued to thrive. The town was expanding as a shopping centre with sizeable quantities of retail stock and domestic goods arriving by rail and being delivered locally by railway dray lorry. One dray was permanently allocated to Pocklington with an extra York­based vehicle being supplied at busy times. Earswick and Stamford Bridge were both served by York lorries.

Pocklington goods depot had a staff of at least three including a checker who inspected the quantity and condition of all inward goods. There were two fixed rotating cranes, one five-ton in the yard and one three-ton in the goods shed, which were later supplemented by two diesel road cranes.

As traditional forms of traffic declined so new traffic grew, especially with light industry developing in the Pocklington area. Modern farm implements, particularly hay-turners for a distribution depot at Full Sutton airfield, arrived by the trainload and nearly every siding would be occupied by as many as 20 loaded wagons. At times this traffic was so heavy that wagons were not always unloaded in time for the next pick-up. On occasions Fangfoss and Stamford Bridge, which were not equipped with the right kind of cranes, would have to help out.

More bulk traffic came with the securing of a major contract for the transit of fruit, especially dates, from Hull docks to Pocklington for a packing firm, Landpac, which had expanded its factory to Pocklington airfield. After closure the firm had to use road transport following unsuccessful attempts to fly in the fruit.

Another local firm generating traffic was Yorkshire Egg Producers which dispatched Newfarm eggs and frozen poultry to shops in Hull by container.

Local goods services on the York-Market Weighton and Market Weighton­Beverley lines were worked separately. On opening of the Beverley extension the pickup serving Kipling Cotes and Cherry Burton left Market Weighton at 12.05 PM, returning from Beverley at 1.35 PM In later years these depots were serviced by the Hull-Bridlington goods

The York-Market Weighton pickup ran on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Following withdrawal of the Selby line's own pickup beyond Cliff Common Derwent Valley Railway interchange, this train also served Everingham and Holme Moor depots until they closed on 2nd August, 1964.

Normally leaving York around 9 am, it reached Pocklington about an hour later, where it would spend some time shunting the yard. The crew usually took advantage of a halt in proceedings to let the 10.10 York-Hull and 9.45 Hull-York passenger trains pass by collecting a well-earned brew from the signal box. Conversely, the returning pickup would often be held in the Pocklington Up loop to let the Hull-York parcels by.

One unusual role performed by the pickup was to deliver water to Holtby station house which had no mains supply. Empty cans were collected on the way out, filled at Stamford Bridge and returned on the way back.

Local stations, especially Pocklington and Market Weighton, also dealt with a fair amount of parcels traffic and both possessed parcels offices and large Pooley weighing machines.

During the late 1950's and 60's many shrubs were sent from Market Weighton by Henley's Nurseries while Pocklington was a popular venue for releasing racing pigeons. The pigeon business there was quite extensive for not only did the local pigeon society regularly dispatched baskets of birds for releasing at other stations, but there was also a regular traffic in pigeon timing clocks. One of the country's few pigeon clock repairers, a Mr. E. Wilkinson, or "Clockie Wilkie" as he was known to station staff, had his business in the town. Most of this traffic was carried by passenger trains or the midday parcels.

More business came from the Warter estate, near Pocklington, particularly in pheasants for London hotels and shops. The estate was also one of the biggest customers for a sack hire business run by the railway at Pocklington depot.