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North Yorkshire Moors Railway (Steam!)

I was at the railway station at Pickering, North Yorkshire, waiting for the excursion train to Whitby, twenty odd miles away on the coast. I asked when the train might arrive to pick us up....

'Your guess is as good as mine' said the ticket inspector waiting on the platform...

I need not have worried. It showed up in good time. A seemingly interminable number of carriages, pulled by a 'Stanier' class locomotive built by Armstrong-Whitworth in 1937, and one of eighteen survivors of a production run numbering nearly nine hundred.

Off we set at a stately 20-25 miles per hour....no hurry....just as well because there was no way we were hurrying....

'Archipelagoes of steam....' Thank you, Philip Larkin, for that turn of phrase...

And so on to Grosmont Junction (pronounce the 'gros' bit the French way) where we stopped to fill up...Here's another Stanier on the opposite platform

And then to Whitby, and an hour and a half or so for fish and chips...

Before the return journey...steaming ino the setting sun...

Finally coming to rest after dark. The way they snort and hiss, I swear these things are alive!

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senghenydd · M

Thank you for sharing your great day out, fab pictures, here in Wales we're losing nine miles of railway it leaves the Rhymney railway which is part of the Transport for Wales passenger network, it was the passenger line to Cae Harris which lost it's passenger service in 1964 it continued until recently transporting Coal, with the closure of the Ffos Y Fran open cast mine it's doomed and will be a sad loss, it could serve as a great Heritage Railway however Welsh Government hasn't any future plans for it.

smiler2012 · 56-60

@supersnipe have you ever watched heartbeat on television thatv was suppose to be in north yorkshire in the sixties and they had steam trains and whitby did feature would be like livinng those times again for you

supersnipe · 61-69, M

@smiler2012 Yes, I know 'Heartbeat'; the action takes place around there. Steam locomotives were something that I didn't see locally where I grew up (North-West Surrey), even when I was very young - our local lines - and the Portsmouth line - were electrified. Steam trains were something that I have a vague memory of from when we ventured further afield, but they were gone by the end of the 60s'.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@supersnipe I lived by the Brighton - Portsmouth - Southampton line in the 1950s, and our family did use it from time to time. So we did not see many steam-locomotives, and those were usually hauling goods trains, as almost all passenger services were by electric trains. There was one exception: the Hayling Island branch line from Havant, steam-hauled to its end.

The end of steam power on British Railways was in 1968, and not very long after that the electrification was extended as far West from London as Weymouth, replacing the "electro-diesel" motive power that had replaced steam on the route.

robingoodfellow · M

Great pictures, great travelogue, looks like a great day

ArishMell · 70-79, M

Beautiful scenes!

BritishFailedAesthetic · M

Pickering

Who? 🤭

woodyemma2013 · 41-45, F

Nice ❤️

Lilnonames · F

That looks awesome

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