2013 Euro Vacation: UK - North Yorkshire Moors Railway

UK – North Yorkshire Moors Railway

Running between Whitby and Pickering is the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, originally built by George Stephenson in the 1830s. It was nearly closed in the Beeching cuts to British Rail in the 1960s, but was saved after strong local protests. Since the 1970s it has operated mainly as a tourist railway, but is also used by locals in the winter when towns are snowed in.

The most well-known station on the line is at Goathland, a small village used as the location (renamed to Aidensfield) for the Heartbeat TV series. The station was also used as the Hogsmeade Station in the first Harry Potter film. Another tiny station, Levisham, also has TV credits, having been used in the original Brideshead Revisited TV series, All Creatures Great and Small, and a Sherlock Holmes film.

The NYMR has a famous steam locomotive, the Sir Nigel Gresley – an A4 Pacific class loco built in 1937 and named after the designer, the 100^th of its type made. It holds the post-war steam loco speed record of 112 miles per hour (about 180 Kph). The loco which pulled the train for our trip was the Eric Treacy, an LMS Class 5 (known as a “Black 5” by trainspotters) also built in 1937 in Newcastle and still going strong.

We travelled from Grosmont to Pickering, then back to Whitby at the line’s other end, then back to Grosmont. It was a great trip through very picturesque countryside, following the course of river valleys, completed with the inevitable steam train experience of coal soot in the hair.