The Last Pipe at the Sidings: Scarborough’s Railway Men Remembered

 I once met an old stationmaster who claimed you could tell the mood of Scarborough by the timbre of the whistle at Seamer Junction. Sharp and quick? Rain coming in off the bay. Slow and drawn out? The tourists had clogged the platforms again.

He told me this over a pint at The Newcastle Packet, pipe smouldering in one hand, the other clutching a faded signal log from 1954. His pipe was a weighty old briar — cracked at the bowl, but still drawing beautifully. A working man’s pipe. A railway man’s pipe.

Steel and Smoke: A Day in the Life

Back then, railway men worked to the rhythm of steam and signal. The guards, the firemen, the telegraph boys — each with a pipe for the waiting. They didn’t rush. Trains didn’t rush. Everything had its place, its pace.

At Falsgrave Yard, just behind where Sainsbury’s car park now sprawls, men once gathered around a brazier before dawn, lighting up in the thin dark. You’d see a few bent stems glowing in the gloom. I imagine one of them — maybe Tom with the limp — might’ve favoured something grand like the Peterson House Pipe 33. Big, rugged, rusticated, and absolutely unapologetic. A pipe built to last through fog and coal dust.

From Carriage to Briar

Train guards had their own preferences. Always neat, usually upright characters with a flair for order. You’d see them waiting at the end of the platform, pocket watch in one hand, pipe in the other. I’d wager a good few would have appreciated the Peterson Silver Cap Sandblast 999 — compact, elegant, but with a tactile roughness that suited hands used to leather gloves and lanterns.

And then there were the blokes who stayed out late — the men who did the night shifts, turning points and checking wagons by lamplight. For those souls, something like the Peterson House Pipe 34 would’ve done nicely. Big bowl, deep draw, long-lasting. Something you could light once and smoke through an entire set of coal wagons without needing a relight.

Where the Lines End, the Memory Begins

These days, the sidings are silent. The track’s long gone. But the memory of those men lingers — in the ghost of a platform edge behind Dean Road, in the curve of a hedge that once followed the line to Burniston, in the quiet smoke that still rises from a pipe packed just right on a grey North Sea morning.

I often walk the old Falsgrave curve, and when I do, I bring a small pipe — something from the Peterson Speciality range. Light, easy to pocket, and perfect for an hour’s stroll through fading railway echoes. I pause where the signals used to stand, light up, and watch the dog dart through the undergrowth where sleepers used to lie. There’s something deeply grounding about smoking on old railway land. It slows the blood. Reminds you that patience once built nations.

They say time moves forward. But in Scarborough, it also moves in circles. In half-remembered routes, footpaths that were once platforms, and pipes still smoked where signalmen once stood.

So if you're ever out walking where the trains no longer run, bring a pipe. Smoke one for the lads. The railway may be gone, but the ritual remains.

🖋️ — The Backy Chronicler

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