Skegness is So Bracing. So says the famous 'Jolly Fisherman' poster by John Hassall in 1908. With this in prospect - along with the chance to visit a line not travelled since 1986 - a booking on the Jolly Vacman seemed both appealing and appropriate!

My first visit to Skegness was on the Fakenham & Dereham Railway Society's GN/GE Joint Farewell tour on 27 Nov 1982, which covered Spalding to March in both directions, plus the Sleaford and Lincoln avoiding lines, along with a trip to Skegness. This was the final day of the Spalding to March line plus the Lincoln avoiding line. My second visit was a 13 Sep 1986 day trip from my then home in West Hampstead, out via Grantham to join a Skegness to Leicester train, covering Barkston East Jn to Allington Jn, which was then a PSUL route.

Both previous occasions had been 'track bashing', rather than taking too much notice of the railway history. My college chum and fellow railway enthusiast, Willie Custance, would wax lyrical about the loss of the railways in Lincolnshire through Woodhall Junction and Mablethorpe, all of which had closed by the time I met him. So, the Jolly Vacman was a good opportunity to update myself on the local railway history, helped of course by writing the itinerary [described by our FS as 'excellent'].

The day was off to an inauspicious start, a delay of almost an hour leaving Derby due to an issue with 50008. Although the issue was worked-around during the day, this took a little while to be sorted out. However, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the air conditioning worked, so we were happy. Before Nottingham at Mansfield Jn we made a beeline for P1; OK, 'B Line' in fact but it is not 'Line B'!

Heading east from Nottingham on the former Midland Railway line gave a great opportunity to see what was left of the Great Northern Railway (GNR) infrastructure, prior to joining that Company's line at Netherfield, with remnants of the Cotgrave Colliery (sunk 1959-1962; production ceased in 1992) branch beyond, which had a triangular junction. The trackbed is now a foot and cyclepath. Evidence of the GNR and L&NWR Joint line was also visible at Saxondale Jn and Bottesford Jns, along with one of rather too many lines that 'got away' Bottesford to Newark, which somehow I never quite got around to doing. This was followed by a rerun - for me - of the Grantham avoiding line, on the way to Sleaford.

Bizarrely, although the Down Relief Siding at Ancaster has been disconnected, the track remains with an ivy covered brakevan at the end. The massive, derelict Bass Maltings beyond Sleaford station, with its eight interconnected malt houses, looked rather forlorn in the summer sunshine, in marked contrast to the rather smart windmill next to Heckington station. This claims to be the only windmill with eight sails in the world. We were now very much in Waterland Country (if you've not read Graham Swift's 1983 novel of the same name, I can strongly recommend it, for its references to both railways and beer), where the horizon seems to stretch into infinity over the flat landscape. This was emphasised once we joined the northern bank of the South Forty Foot Drain, on the way into Boston.

Our train was scheduled to make two visits to Skegness. However, because of the initial delay, the first visit was truncated at Boston, where those who planned to spend most of the day in Skegness left the tour train to catch the following East Midlands Railway (EMR) service to Skegness, on which EMR kindly accepted our tour tickets. After a reversal just beyond the River Witham bridge, the rest of us returned to Sleaford for a run along the GN&GE Joint line to Lincoln, a line I had not travelled since 1982 and which has been much modernised recently to take some freight off the East Coast Main Line.

With Lincoln Cathedral standing impressively on the aptly named 'Steep Hill' over the city, our train paused at the station, before reversing on the Up Gainsborough Slow line. The Up Through line was then traversed as we headed back along the Joint line to Spalding, via the Sleaford avoiding line.

The once busy junctions (with six routes) at Spalding were quite hard to reconcile with the current, basic infrastructure, as we headed for one of the highlights for me, Werrington Diveunder. After a further reversal on the Two Way Goods line, alongside the platforms at Peterborough station, came another highlight. This was the electrified Down Slow/Down Stamford line, as we headed north to Grantham, bypassing that station on the Goods Line, on our journey to Boston for the second time. A small treat on the way was doing Sleaford P3, (we covered all three platforms during the day).

Now running to time, we could progress past Boston (a line lucky to survive the 5 Oct 1970 massacre of railways in Lincolnshire), onto the very long, straight section of track from Boston to Firsby. Through the flat Lincolnshire countryside, it was once part of the London to Grimsby main line. Before Firsby, an abrupt turn of over 90o took us onto the more curvaceous Skegness branch, to the seaside in P4.

I cannot visit a seaside town without going onto the beach, so a brisk walk through the streets took me onto the rather coarse sand of the Pleasure Beach, reasonably busy with families on a warm, sunny summer's day. Looking out to sea, beyond the pebbly foreshore, in the distance was the impressive Lincs Wind Farm, able to generate 270MW of electricity. However, being at the seaside also means fish and chips, so a prompt return was made to what was claimed to be the first fish and chip restaurant in the town for an early supper of freshly cooked fish, chips and mushy peas, which was delicious.

Although Skegness station retains some of its once impressive infrastructure, with four platforms still available for use, controlled by a fine manual signal box, generally only P4 and P5 are used. So for some fellow participants, the sight of an EMR service in P3 was a cause for great excitement - and a reason for taking the service train back to Boston. The switch of this train to P3 was requested by the Fixtures Secretary so that some of our train, all shunted across to P5 in the break, could be tanked. With EMR services running late (and in some cases, very crowded), our train had a delayed start on its return to Sleaford and Lincoln, exacerbated by the single line sections (a British Rail economy) on the return to Sleaford. Then, from Lincoln, the route back to Derby was via Newark North Gate (but not Northgate!) Goods Loop, Claypole Up Passenger Loop and a final reversal at Grantham, all of which went to plan. A very enjoyable day on a tour completely in daylight and over £1,100 was raised for Railway Children through our raffle and buffet service. Thanks to all those involved in running the tour.

Route details
[© Alan Sheppard & Martyn Brailsford 2023]

Mileage table
[© Alan Sheppard 2023]