Hello, I'm aware there's a strip light coming out my head.
Deal with it.
I'm on a train...
like that's a surprise.
I'm always on a train.
I've just left Platform 0 at Doncaster.
I'm heading to Goole to meet someone.
Before I do,
I need to do this,
(snaps fingers)
That just makes me happy.
And I'm going to meet my companion at Goole,
as we do the least used station, get it right,
in East Riding of Yorkshire.
(upbeat music)
I've made it to Goole.
There goes the train.
And here comes my companion.
Nice t-shirt.
Thank you very much.
Where'd you get that from?
It's bought especially for today.
It's not as good as my new t-shirt.
Everybody keep your distance.
This is Phil.
Yep.
Say hi Phil.
Hi YouTube, how are we all doing?
Phil where are you from?
Sheffield.
But like me, Phil likes railways and infrastructure.
Not necessarily trains.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good summary.
And we were going to do...
Darnall.
That's right,
least used station in South Yorkshire.
South Yorkshire.
And I went, because that's right where you live.
Yep, that's my-
And then I went Rawcliffe.
I think just, it looks more interesting.
Yeah.
Okay, but I believe
you've got loads to tell me,
cause Phil's got stuff.
It's going to start with a walk along a canal.
That's right, yeah.
(upbeat music)
So to get to Rawcliffe,
which has one train in the morning,
and then two the evening,
it's a very limited service.
We've got the train to Goole, and we're
going to walk Rawcliffe.
That's right.
And then get the train back to Goole.
Now, when I said to Phil,
"Do you want to come?"
He was like, "Should I do some research?"
I was like, "Sure!"
Normally I just expect people to look up passenger figures.
Phil turned up today,
he's got like seven pages.
He's got research.
He's got times.
He's got, got all this stuff.
He's got so--
It's too much Phil.
Phil you've done too much.
I totally agree.
Your new name is research...
It's better too much than too little.
Your new name is Research Phil.
But you give us one amazing fact,
that you've just told me on the walk here about Goole.
So Goole is the furthest inland dock
in the whole of the United Kingdom.
In the whole...
That's quite a claim.
Yeah so we're 45 miles from the sea,
which is quite remarkable isn't it?
Tide will move all the way here-
And these docks are still in use today?
Absolutely, yeah.
There's ships that regularly go
across to Scandinavia,
all over Europe,
even as far as Morocco and South Africa remarkably.
But to get to Rawcliffe,
we could have just walked along the road
or got the bus,
but then we both spotted on the map
there's this amazing-
Public right of way.
There's a public right of way
that goes in between a river.
Which river?
It's the Dutch River which it cuts so now-
That's the Don?
Yeah the river Don.
It's the Dutch River because it was colonised by some-
And a canal I love a canal.
Yes.
And it's the air in colder navigation.
So we get to walk between-
Yep.
There's this tiny little strip of land
that's about 200 metres wide-
Well that's just fun in itself, you know,
and it's just to get to Rawcliffe.
And we're going to see the bit where the railway
goes over as well.
I feel that the drone is going to come out.
Oh yeah (crosstalk)
(upbeat music)
So, walking down the canal or the learn so much,
most of it I've forgotten,
but is this like a,
we've got like a two, three mile walk here?
Yeah I think- (crosstalk)
Just straight down.
Straight down.
Absolutely arrow straight.
It's absolutely arrow straight.
And that will take us to Rawcliffe bridge.
And then we go up.
That's right.
To a station between Rawcliffe bridge and Rawcliffe itself.
(footsteps)
So I've just noticed that this is the Pontefract line,
which we're coming back on.
You can see a signal for it.
You just make out the bridge.
There's a little stream that goes underneath the canal here.
So that's the trail of line
in which we'll be coming back on later on.
It's quite a long walk,
and there's not a lot happening in
this arrow straight walk.
No.
The little detail we're pointing out here
and we've talked about-
And it's warm and it's sunny.
And I'm like, you know,
without wanting to sound like a petulant child
on the backseat of a car,
but, are we nearly there yet?
Yeah.
We thought,
so middle of September,
it'd be nice cool,
while in actual fact-
It's really warm.
It's really warm and relatively humid,
and you know..
But we're not grumbling really are we
because we're on our adventure aren't we Geoff?
It is an adventure,
but I'm going to fade to black now.
And when I fade up,
we'll magically,
we'll be at Rawcliffe.
Okay
Rawcliffe a neighbourhood watch village.
Somebody lives in the station house,
because as we were just literally filming there,
a guy turned up in his van and he's like,
what you doing?
And we're like,
we're here to see the station and get the train.
And he then went,
there are no trains.
So we've met the gentleman that works in the works in...
Works in there?
Lives in there.
And I went do you not like trains then?
And he went.. not really.
Why would you live in an old railway station building?
Phil.
Yep.
I'm very aware that I'm...
(leaf crunching)
I'm crunching leaves.
First leaves of Autumn are falling
It is September.
Autumn has arrived.
Single platform,
station building,
which is beautiful,
look at the stained glass window.
So, it was double-track till not that long ago.
So the station opened in 1848.
When you say not that long ago,
when was it singled?
I'm not certain,
but I believe it was sometime in the seventies or eighties,
but I couldn't find a specific date.
Why the word Riding?
Riding is a corruption.
It's from old English.
It might be north.
We're not absolutely certain.
And it's changed how it's been pronounced over time.
It used to be Thriding.
So that, can you guess Geoff,
where that comes from Thriding?
So how many Ridings are that I'm putting on the spot here
Now here's three.
So what does thriving sound like?
Three
Third yeah third.
So that's where it came from the Thriding of Yorkshire.
So each third of Yorkshire,
that's where we get the right name and it corrupts over time
to come Riding R I D I N G rather than T H R I D.
I'm learning, I'm worried
there's people from Yorkshire and East Riding now typing
comments going, you've got that slightly wrong.
Let's hope you've got that totally correct.
I've done my best.
Hey Phil?
Yes.
There's a bike rack, is there a bin?
Yes there is.
Why you walking backwards, I love it.
You have to do the whole thing backwards
as you keep distance.
Right ok
Is there a customer information screen?
Er no
Is there a ticket machine?
No.
Is there a permit to travel?
No
You should do that for the whole video
just walking backwards.
Is there a shelter?
Yes
Is there a car park?
Not really.
Is there a private residence?
Yes
Is there a shop?
Down the road there is but not at the station.
Is there a ticket machine?
No.
Is there, have we've done a dot matrix?
No we haven't and there isn't one of those either.
Is there a timetable poster?
There's one saying that timetables have changed because of
COVID weather there'll be one there all the time
we don't know at the moment.
You see down there, what we've got here,
camera it's a bit of the old platform.
It was very definitely double track.
I like that you could almost,
almost sort of lean over and reach it.
(footsteps)
It is glorious looking down the line.
We'll see the track, the track,
the train coming down the tracks from a long way away.
Phil, before we go in the shelter
from the document as we'll call it.
Have you got another quick, quick Phil fact?
Yeah so the timetable here was cut radically in 1991.
And that was apparently due to a shortage of rolling stock.
And again, in 2004, and it's roughly 2004,
when the current service of three trains a day, every day,
except Sundays was implemented.
And in the background you can probably hear the rumble.
There's a motorway over there.
That's the M60..
M62 18 interchange over.
It there's a massive interchange right nearby,
but this is a 62 you can hear the cars.
And basically if we're going to Leeds from Goole
you can just drive.
The very first bit of the bridge that you can see in shot
the distant, very nearest lane is the exit slip at the M18.
Okay.
Hello?
Hello there.
I'm not even sat on the bench.
I've perched myself.
I'm going to crouch on the floor.
Did you learn in all your research and your document?
Yep.
Have you memorised the passenger stats for Rawcliffe?
I have.
The least used station in the East of Riding of Yorkshire.
That's right.
So per the office of rail and road
estimated statistics passenger figures
for, for Rawcliffe station where we are right now.
For which period?
The 2018, 19 financial year.
There were 522 passengers in the entire year.
I feel like I could display that magically
on the wall behind me okay.
Imagine that's there as always,
we divide by 365 for approximate daily usage figure.
That would be..
One point four three passengers per day.
That's really not a lot is it?
No really isn't.
To put that in perspective.
When we were at Goole earlier,
I worked out that it gets 762 passengers a day.
So if we get 522, a year here at Rawcliffe Goole,
we'll get 762 a day, so 244 more.
(background car noise)
All right, we're outside the station.
Come join me Phil at a the distance.
Thank you.
There's no totem, is there?
No.
There's no red and white double arrow.
No there's no totem with the British rail symbol
and then saying the name of the station.
There's nothing that says this is a station.
There's not even a sign saying the entrance is here.
You know arrows or it's the way in or something like that.
There's not even a sign like that.
With 1. something passengers a day.
Yeah there's not a lot of point.
There did used to be another,
there's a disused station down the road what's it called?
He's he's got his
I love the fact that you brought a whole..I do I love it.
I love the folder.
I'm trying to be useful, trying to be helpful.
So many facts.
Content.
What was the abandoned station called?
Yeah so there used to be another station,
another branchline
which was about a mile and a half in that direction
called Airmyn and Rawcliffe.
So as Jeff mentioned earlier, we're between Rawcliffe Bridge
where you saw us walk through earlier,
Rawcliffe proper is sort of where the houses are behind us
up shot up screen or the road there.
And it was on the other side of the village.
(car engine)
In the distance, our train duth approach.
Duth approach?
Duth approach.
Is that a word?
It is now now you've said it.
Did you not do the etymology of the name of the station
itself?
He's done all this research.
He doesn't know why.
Why is it called Rawcliffe Phil?
I don't actually know I'm sorry.
What a let down, who invited me?
You're not having me back are you?
You're never coming again.
(train engine)
How many years?
Seven years of doing this.
And no one has ever boarded at Rawcliffe?
For me.
We just spoke to the amazing Ally our wonderful guard
who genuinely said in seven years of signing it
he's never seen anybody get on at Rawcliffe.
At Rawcliffe going to Goole.
He says there's 32 conductors.
Yep.
16 in the morning shift 16 in the evening shift.
And they all like take it in turns and it's,
it's a great shift to do because no passengers
One of his favourites no hassle.
No, no problem.
And also just to flooding back early in the year before
COVID apparently the lines been closed since like January,
February so this week,
September is the first week that's running...
Opened on Thursday and it's been closed eight months.
So it's amazing.
Right we're at Goole.
(train engine)
Phil why don't you..
I'm gonna just switch things up.
Let's be you you come where I am and I'll go where you are.
Well, hope you enjoyed that everybody.
That was the least used station
in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Be sure to tune in next time here on Geoff Check's YouTube
channel, all the best, keep smiling and have fun.
Bye.