A large group had gathered on Doncaster P4 on a beautiful sunny morning awaiting the start of proceedings. Unfortunately, it transpired that the stock, which had been stabled in Belmont Down Yard overnight, was trapped in by a failed Ripple Lane to Immingham freight. Eventually the errant 66190 and its train were hauled past the station by 66130 and Freightliner 70016 and 66955 appeared hauling our Riviera Mk2 air conditioned set including two generator vans. Neither of these locos had hauled a passenger train before and the addition of DBC 66010 on the rear, recently returned from a long sojourn in France, meant winning locos all round. Unfortunately an issue with the central door locking led to a further delay but we were eventually able to leave Doncaster some 67 minutes down.

The sensible decision was taken to omit the advertised deviation via Selby Canal Curve and the set back into Thirsk engineers' sidings (both repeatable), to recover time for the Teesside highlights. We passed the remains of Eggborough Power Station to our west looking odd without cooling towers. Progress was evident on electrification to Church Fenton with the OHLE recently installed at Colton Jn.

The first target of the day was York Yard North where we were booked to traverse Road 1. Relatively few tours are routed via the York Avoiding or Slow Lines, especially in the Down direction. The route was incorrectly set and successfully challenged by the driver. Although a signalled route through the siding, the signaller required confirmation that the required clamping (completed the previous day) was in place before a route could be set. With the trap point at the end clamped, the route had to be set out at Skelton Jn (now with a half-hourly Harrogate line service) too before we could proceed.

After pickups at Thirsk, Northallerton and Yarm, we arrived on Tees Yard Departure Road 8 (!) where the Freightliner locos were detached and replaced with DBC 60092, before drawing forward to reverse on Arrival Road 12 (a dead end line once part of the Up Sorting Yard), then exited via Up Goods No2.



Now for the first highlight of the day. Branching off the main line after Greatham at 67m 52ch we left NR infrastructure at 67m 73ch (the boundary gates) and ventured into Hartlepool South Works complex which manufactures large pipes of different sizes. Previous tours only reached the Plate Sidings - exchange sidings that are now unused (like the internal locos) near the main line. Our tour was able to slowly progress beyond the 42'' and 84'' mills owned by Liberty Steel, almost 180 degrees around what is known as the 'big curve' arriving next to the 20'' pipe mill operated by Tata Steel. This was accompanied by a cacophony of warning sirens.

Ground staff were on hand to clip points so that the Class 60 could draw our tour inside the 20'' pipe mill building to the buffer stops in the coil bay - the far end of the building top centre. This was really impressive. Is this the first visit of a mainline loco hauled tour inside an active manufacturing plant? 66010 drew us back to the 'dumb end' end of line of the 2m 8ch branch before we returned slowly to the main line at Greatham, (bottom left on map, Hartlepool is off top right). Our tour ran through the opposite side of the loop and covered both of the two southern most roads in the Plate Sidings. In all, we travelled over 4â…” miles on this Baker level industrial line. A work force of 300 manufactures 200,000 tonnes of large diameter carbon reinforced steel tubes a year and £7M is being invested in a new 'tube slitting line'. Construction of the works began in 1958 and it all looks fairly modern and cared for. The branch has high security fencing and rather incongruously is surrounded by well established greenery/trees. Block coil trains regularly run from Margam (Port Talbot Steel Works) right through to the 20'' mill and at times pipes also go out by rail for coating and/or delivery.

Our next visit was to Lackenby, south of the River Tees, at the heart of the former Redcar Steelworks complex. The area is now a sorry sight. The Basic Oxygen Steelmaking (BOS) plant is in an advanced state of demolition and only a few facilities including the Beam Mill are now in use, specialising in construction steel. Actual steel making ceased with closure of the blast furnace and BOS plant in 2015.

However, a significant amount of rail infrastructure remains. Leaving the Down Goods at Beam Mill Jn, we crossed the flyover on the Beam Mill Line and entered British Steel infrastructure at Slag Road Level Crossing (18m 67ch). Most of Lackenby No2 Grid sidings appeared to have had recent use but No3 and No4 Grids were very rusty. Ten industrial shunter locomotives could be seen, none of which looked as though they had been recently active. 66010 and 60092 were detached on No2 Grid Road 7 and British Steel's Rolls-Royce 0-6-0DH 10255 (1966) No39 buffered up and proceeded to haul us eastwards and then propelled us onto a road between the Beam Mill and the Coil Plate Mill.

During these manoeuvres, 66198 arrived from Scunthorpe, some three hours late, with a load of steel for finishing and we were amazed to see it being detached from its train, swapped with 66010, then coupled up to 60092 which was waiting to take us back to Middlesbrough. The organisers had planned to undertake this change in Tees Yard, but it was easier to do at Lackenby. Our Lackenby Looper was duly reformed on No2 Grid Road 9 behind what were now the fourth and fifth mainline locos of the day to return us to back to Middlesbrough for a break while the stock was serviced ECS in Tees Yard.

The break, included following previous feedback, was welcome on such a hot day. Middlesbrough station has recently been resignalled and its frontage is undergoing extensive restoration. A third platform is to be added. To everyone's surprise, when the train returned, it was headed not by 66198 but by 66094 - our sixth mainline loco. This was really turning into a spin and win (track and locos)!

Next, Skinningrove, another former steelworks up in the hills on the cliffs, now manufacturing special profiles. Permission to enter the site had unfortunately not been granted and we reversed at the NR limit (34m 18ch) as advertised, the first crossing by Crag Hall signal box which retains its semaphore signals. From Saltburn to Crag Hall there were amazing views in the evening sun back to industrial Teesside (a last view of Redcar Blast Furnace before demolition), out to sea and south towards Boulby Cliff from the horseshoe curve at Warsett Hill. Here the railway - once double track - rises steeply to an altitude of over 100m and is only separated from the cliff edge by the narrow Cleveland Way footpath. There was an excellent clear view over Saltburn, recently visited on our Merchant of Teesside tour.

And so to our final highlight with a visit to Redcar Bulk Terminals, after a reversal at Grangetown. This facility was originally built for handling imported iron ore and we were treated to an excellent and interesting commentary by Tony Evans, the operations supervisor for the site, who was formerly the cast house manager in the blast furnace plant. Can we have more of these commentaries please?

The site remains busy with 13 trains expected to leave over the following week. Commodities handled now include granulated slag, aggregates from Glensanda Quarry in the Morvern Peninsula near Oban, sand, and in a sign of the times - coal. 300,000 tonnes of coal are due to arrive over the coming weeks for Drax Power Station. The dock is the second deepest on the east coast with a 17.5m draught.

Much of the loading equipment dates from the 1970s and has been repurposed from its original use in handling iron ore. A new export flow will be polyhalite arriving via conveyor through a 37km long tunnel currently under construction from the Woodsmith Mine (competing with Boulby) near Whitby. When complete, it will be the longest tunnel within the UK (and will include a railway!) terminating at Wilton, with the final conveyor to the terminal above ground. Beyond the piles of material awaiting transhipment, there was significant dereliction. Redcar Blast Furnace was still standing but like the BOS Plant we saw earlier, the Sinter Plant was in an advanced state of demolition. Little remained of the Coke Ovens and we were told that the two Gas Holders were to be dismantled shortly.

Land around was being cleared for redevelopment and a new Tesco warehouse had already appeared.

From Redcar Ore Terminal Jn (20m 05ch) the tour took the Ore Arrival Line, then the remaining single track past the Pad (formerly for Coke), passing the disused signal box, going to the left over 'A' Line weighbridge and through the loading bunker to the end of the loop where 60092 was detached.

The two low level lines (on the left) to the former 'Raw Coal Stocks' on TRACKmaps 2 p47 B 2020 were disused, overgrown/buried and the far end mostly dismantled. Of note, at Tod Point Jn (20m 50ch) - the NR boundary - the original double track Saltburn line trackbed was clearly evident off to 21m 72ch (change of mileage to 22m 16ch) - the deviation which opened 19 Jun 1978 along with the present British Steel Redcar station is 24ch shorter. 60092 followed our tour at a safe distance back to Redcar Ore Terminal Jn (via the Ore Departure Line), eventually passing us near Newport East Jn, where we unusually crossed from the Up Saltburn Slow (was the Up Goods) to the Up Saltburn (was Up Main).

All that remained now was one final bit of high quality 'bobbins' north of York which was achieved via the Up Slow at Skelton Bridge Jn, then the rare crossover to the bidirectional Down Fast into York P3. Despite the 76 min late departure earlier in the day, we arrived back in to Doncaster exactly on time.

This was a fantastic tour, achieving all four highlights during daylight with haulage by six mainline locos and an industrial shunter, most of which were winners. Then there was First Class dining, real ale and cider (which sold out), the buffet with food options, maps itineraries etc etc. The planning, negotiation and organisation that goes into these extravaganzas is enormous but £17,500 was raised for Martin House Hospice. [Thanks to everyone who contributed to the raffle which made up nearly 10% of this - £1,736 from the 383 on the tour. Martin House supplied fund raising staff to help out on the train and some very nice prizes.] We are all really grateful to all those individuals involved, and of course the organisations within the rail industry and more widely who have supported this complex project. It's incredible that it is still possible to pull off a tour like this in 2022. Roll on the next one on 3 & 4 Sep!