I was recently back around Doncaster for a few days and was saddened to see the continued decline of the South Yorkshire Joint line - Harworth branch now completely defunct, and seemingly little to no traffic south of St Catherine's Junction. With the lack of functioning pits and the costly requirement to man Maltby S.B. (and possibly others), will the line have any future? It doesn't seem cost effective to keep maintaining it for occasional 'contingency' use.
The only traffic at the moment seems to be occasional movements of new wagons from W.H. Davis at Shirebrook, like this one -
https://www.flickr.com/photos/122599534@N05/52195550839/
Last summer there was a brief revival of coal trains from Immingham to West Burton (more photos if you click the left arrow) -
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vinc2020/51372503372/in/photostream/
I read recently that the closure of West Burton has been pushed back from October 2022 to March 2023 in order to provide backup capacity to the National Grid over the winter. Depending how much this actually gets used, there could perhaps be some more coal trains running before it closes.
https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/west-burton-closure-update
In the longer term, the reason for retaining the line might be connected to a proposal to gauge clear the South Yorkshire joint line to W12 for container traffic to Doncaster Iport.
This is mentioned in a 2017 Freight Network Study, where it appears to score comparatively well in terms of projected benefits:
https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Freight-Network-Study-April-2017.pdf
Gauge clearance to W12 of South Yorkshire Joint Line between Doncaster and Gainsborough via Worksop, to
enable W12 traffic to access Rossington intermodal terminal. Potential cost range: £15m to £35m
I'm not sure how likely that is to actually happen, but the existence of this proposal might be enough for the route to be retained.
what happened to the Middleton Towers - Doncaster (& Goole) sand trains that used to go this way to avoid complicated manoeuvres at Low Ellers Jc ?
The sand train to Barnby Dunn on the outskirts of Doncaster used to run this way, but the main reason for the routing was to drop off a portion at the Rockware plant at Worksop. From what I can recall it only ran this way in the northbound direction, leaving the ECML at Retford, dropping off loaded wagons and picking up empties at Worksop, then running through to Barnby Dunn via the South Yorkshire Joint.
These days the Barnby Dunn train runs via Doncaster station, with access to the sidings at Barnby Dunn via a reversal at Kirk Sandall Junction.
Took a while to find a photo of this move, but here it is:
6E85 is on the Up Slow at Kirk Sandall, waiting to propel across the main line:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanpadley/39073415254/in/photostream/
Propelling into the sidings:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanpadley/39075872704/in/photostream/
Drone shot of the Ardagh glass factory as a train propels in:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robmcrorie/51274393794/
View from the level crossing right outside the factory (manual gates operated by groundstaff):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/60628514@N02/13019523895/
The train also does the same thing on the way back, running round in the sidings and doing a rather surprising propelling move across all lines onto the Up Slow, before waiting its path and departing onto the Down Main.
Some photos of the old routing via Worksop:
Unusual shot of 66075 taking the flyover at Retford in 2008:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanpadley/2776928559/
60057 at Worksop in 2004 -
https://www.flickr.com/photos/75892080@N06/49124312772/
Ten years before, I found a couple of interesting photos of the Worksop traffic being detached at Retford off the Monk Bretton sand train:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/75892080@N06/13985727688/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/75892080@N06/15541870166/
This photo, also from 1994, shows a full train to Barnby Dunn running via Worksop:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/58534838@N05/5532126117/