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Railways of the North York Moors by Michael Blakemore Soft Cover
Railways of the North York Moors by Michael Blakemore
Soft Cover
72 pages
Copyright 2001
CONTENTS
Introduction 5
Whitby & Pickering Railway 6
Ryedale Branch 19
Rosedale 36
Forge Valley Branch 41
From Scarborough to Whitby 46
North of Whitby 59
Esk Valley Branch 67
INTRODUCTION
Inviting a Lancastrian to write about the railways of the North York Moors might be considered to be akin to asking a football supporter to write about a rival team! Not so in this case! Many youthful holidays in Scarborough fostered a lifetime appreciation of the rocky coastline and the rolling moorland sweeping away from the sea.
It is a beautiful part of England and through and around it a tightly-linked little network of railway lines was built up which, interestingly, spanned almost the whole era of railway construction. Today the preserved North Yorkshire Moors Railway is one of our most famous `heritage' lines but how many of the many thousands who come to visit it each year appreciate that it is also one of our most historic? In the first formative years of railways no less a person than George Stephenson engineered a route from Whitby to Pickering; but when it opened in 1836 it was a world away from what we see today. Horses plodded valiantly along it through Newton Dale and it took the arrival of the York & North Midland Company's railway from York to Scarborough in 1845 to inspire the conversion of the Whitby & Pickering into a `modern' locomotive-worked line which eventually carried through coaches from London.
The last link in the network was not completed until nearly 50 years later when the Scarborough-Whitby line was opened in 1885, perhaps a logical connection between these neighbouring resorts and ports but a physically difficult one to achieve. Its arrival on the map was only a few years after two other latecomers - the boldly-engineered Whitby, Redcar & Middlesbrough Union line and the peacefully-rural Forge Valley branch.
The scenic delights of the railways of the North York Moors soon came to give pleasure to the many who visited and holidayed in the area, as well as giving service to local communities where they opened up travel opportunities, facilitated the carrying of goods and often provided a lifeline in harsh winters. However, it should not be forgotten that despite the apparently rural nature of the area, there were pockets of industry which the railways served; most notably, ironstone was mined in the Esk Valley and up in the wilds of Rosedale. These latter workings were reached by a mineral railway in a setting which could hardly be a greater contrast to the Ryedale branch in a largely agricultural district on the south west fringe of our area where the North York Moors start to soar away from the Vale of York.
Sadly, scenic railways in lightly-populated countryside do not make good economics and closures began as early as 1931 on the GillingMalton branch and continued during the 1950s. The `Beeching Report' of 1963 foretold their total demise but they did not go without a fight; the closures of the Whitby Pickering- Malton line south of Grosmont and the Scarborough-Whitby route were two of the most bitterly-contested cases of that whole unhappy period.
What remains today? The Esk Valley service between Whitby and Middlesbrough clings on to a tenuous life, while the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, operating between Grosmont and Pickering, is firmly established as a tourist attraction par excellence, its popularity further boosted by film and television appearances. Elsewhere, trackbeds have vanished beneath road improvements and building developments or have been taken back into the farmland from which they were once won. On the coast the trackbed of much of the Scarborough to Whitby route is a footpath and the scenery can still be enjoyed, albeit not from the comfort of a train.
This book does not set out to be a definitive history of any of the lines it features; all have been covered elsewhere in much greater detail and by more expert authors. It does, however, hope to give a flavour of a series of inter-connecting but highly-individual branch lines - some still much loved, others less well recalled in the days before a changing world brought about their decline and fall.
In preparing this book, my thanks are due to all those photographers who recorded the railways of the North York Moors, in particular to Robin Lidster, Patrick Howat, David Sutcliffe, John Spencer Gilks, John Edgington and the Ken Hoole Study Centre at the Darlington North Road Station Museum for generously making pictures from their collections available.
All pictures are of the actual item. If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad. Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us.
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