North Yorkshire Moors Railway

The railway between Pickering and Grosmont in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park was originally part of the Whitby& Pickering Railway built with the advice of George Stephenson in 1835. In 1845 it became a double track steam railway as part of the York & North Midland Railway, and from 1854 was part of the North Eastern Railway. Passenger services ceased in 1965 but within two years a movement for its preservation developed, and the first public train under the new regime ran in 1971. The railway connects at Grosmont with trains on the national network between Whitby and Middlesbrough, and on some days through trains run into Whitby, some 29 km from Pickering. Trains are worked by a variety of locomotives, many of them loaned from the national collection or by different owners and trusts. A notable example is the 2-10-0 now named Dame Vera Lynn, a wartime ‘Austerity’ locomotive built by the North British company in Glasgow in 1945 and sent to Egypt where it was surplus to requirements. It was sold to Hellenic State Railways and worked in the Thessaloniki area until 1979. It was sold to preservationists in England in 1984, worked on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway between 1898 and 1998, and in 2017 is awaiting overhaul.

Pickering station is a particularly distinguished building designed by George Townsend Andrews (1804-55) and is restored as it would have been in 1937. Levisham is restored as country station of 1912, Goathland as it would have been in 1922, and Grosmont has the appearance of a British Railways North Eastern Region station of 1952.

North Yorkshire Moors Railway
Pickering Station
Park Street
YO18 7JA Pickering
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1751 - 472508
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