Cinder Track June 2017

Two community groups look after the interests of the old railway line between Scarborough and Whitby (The Cinder Track). A group based in Whitby (Gateway) covers the track from Whitby to Ravenscar and The Friends of the Old Railway, which I chair, the stretch from Ravenscar down into Scarborough.  Tied up in family affairs I hadn't been able to make it up the Track for a couple of months but I did manage to get out yesterday and here's a brief report on what I found.

In early summer the vegetation alongside the Track can begin to get out of control and is beginning to get to the state where unless it's cut back soon the Track runs the risk of becoming impassable. 

At Barrowcliff fields, nettles around the lamp post, 

and vegetation growing through the fence, makes 

it hard to stick to the Track

Further north, the effective width in some places is now less than 1m.

Near Burniston, nettles and cow parsley 

threaten to overwhelm the Track

But, even though the verges all the way up to the Grange Farm crossing (about 1 mile south of Ravenscar) are in desperate need of cutting there have been some other improvements.

There was a section of Track just to the south of the bridge that leads to Cober Hill in Cloughton where the removal of surface cinders had left behind an extremely bumpy field of boulders. As part of the work to deal with a drainage issue further north these have now been successfully buried beneath a covering of road planings. Many thanks....

Road planings covering the boulder field near Cober Hill

Water used to run onto the track from the field entrance to the right.

The puddles have been filled, and the surface graded, so that excess water will run off.

Earlier in the year the Track had quite a few areas of standing water. These have now dried up and its interesting to note how well the cinder surface self heals, any hollows fill themselves in, and is back to being a smooth comfortable surface to ride on.

Of course, the major issues still remain. Not least, the extremely bumpy and narrow surface where the Track actually gets most use in the urban section in Scarborough.