It was a bright sunny day for a return to Doncaster. My train from Retford and heading for York was delayed because “a train has hit an obstacle on the line”, we were informed, but only by 17 minutes, so presumably not too big an obstacle. This is still a Class 91 powered diagram, it seems. Locomotive hauled freights were actually few and far between, hardly surprising given the intensity of the passenger train traffic on the ECML and cross-country routes.
On the edge of Collingham, a village east of the Trent and north of Newark, is Cross Lane. It connects two main roads going eastwards from the village centre – Swinderby Road and Potterhill Road. As in so much of the lower and flatter bits of Eastern England, the railway crosses the roads around here at a series of level crossings as there are few bridges. In times past, these tended to be gated crossings with cottages alongside, where the crossing keeper lived. Their job was to open and close the gates manually and as required. Where road traffic was dominant, the gates were only closed to vehicles when a train was due to pass. Where road traffic was sparse, or virtually non-existent, the gates would only be opened on demand for occasional road users, like farmers’ tractors, etc. Drivers would summon attention from the crossing keeper by ringing a bell outside their property. Today, modern crossings are operated remotely. Warning lights show and then automatic barriers are lowered over the road when a train is approaching. The crossing keepers’ cottages are consequently defunct and most have been sold off to private occupiers. Apparently, in this particular case there are plans afoot to actually divert Cross Lane itself, so that it no longer crosses the railway at this point, but joins Swinderby Road further away from the village, thus removing the need for the Cross Lane crossing at all in the future.
