|
Remarkable Railway Adventures In Yorkshire and The North Of EnglandBy Ann LeRoyWe've all seen or heard about Yorkshire and the North of England-- even if we've never really been there. We’ve seen TV vet, James Herriot, between episodes of “Hoof and Mouth” disease or lambing, give us great, glorious, visual gulps of wind-swept moors and craggy dales as he bounces along in his Austin 7.
The North of England, in and around Yorkshire, is a land of terrible and tender beauty. In years past, its craggy, heather-swept landscape has been mined for coal and valuable ores. These resources, as well as the sweat and imagination of its soot-smudged sons, have given the world iron, steel, and the birth of the first railways and steam locomotives.
National Railway Museum Friends who are railroad buffs recently spent a holiday in York and didn’t go to the National Railway Museum.Their reason? In a tourist brochure, they read that admission was FREE. They thought it couldn’t be worth much if it cost naught. Not true! The National Railway Museum is the largest, most comprehensive railway museum on earth! And, it’s not only FREE, it’s priceless! Infants to octogenarians will be delighted at the size, scope and splendor of its offerings.
Looking for glamour? Check-out Queen Victoria’s opulent railway saloons or the night train to Paris from the 50s. Kid-crafts (including cotton-ball and toilet roll, locomotive-making) were in high gear on the Saturday we visited. Also trips on a steam locomotive were operating in the rail yard.
North Yorkshire Moors Railway
From Pickering, you begin on one of the most breath-taking 17-mile train journeys in all of Yorkshire. Minutes after your locomotive chugs out of the station in a cloud of steam, you enter the unspoiled world of the North York Moors National Park. Its green/grey vistas are vast and almost uninhabited. And, for as far as the eye can see, it’s pre-historic, ice-scarred, crags are awash in a sea of waving heather…
Many TV and film producers, besides YTV have come under the spell of the NYMR. Goathland has recently been transformed, once again, into “Hogsmeade” station for the “Harry Potter” films.
The KWVR is a faithfully restored 5-mile branch line running steam trains from Keighley to Oxenhope through the moody landscape of the Bronte’s West Yorkshire. Along the line there are quaint, gas-lit stations, historic compartment carriages, as well as a “Museum of Rail Travel” at Ingrow. The highly photogenic KWVR and its station at Oakworth were featured in a number of TV programs and films, including the 1970s film, The Railway Children, based on the much-loved book by E. Nesbit. Every weekend, and on selected weekdays, buffet car service provides not only tea, coffee, soft drinks and sandwiches –but also real ale! Beer drinkers will appreciate the railway’s fine attention to detail. Eschewing the easy-out, bottle beer solution, the KWVR tackled the ticklish problem of how to keep a traditional barrel of beer--with sediment-- drinkable on a moving train. Their solution: before the 5-mile journey begins, beer is drawn from a cask into a specially made drum from which traditional pints are pulled in the very traditional KVWR buffet car! Darlington Railway Centre & Museum
Besides a number of other period locomotives and the Ken Hoole Study Center for regional railway history, the museum absolutely resonates with railway voices from the past! Currently, two interactive theater pieces bring the heritage of the old locomotives and the soaring imaginations of their founders to life! “George Stephenson and Wife,” and “Three Tales of Trains Gone By,” are both presented by regional actors and funded through the “Renaissance in the Region” program, and will continue to delight and illuminate visitors to Darlington through March, 2005. Tanfield Railway Originally opened in 1725 to haul coal, Tanfield is the oldest existing railway in the world. It offers passenger steam train rides through the year. The Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway
Steam trains leave Embsay Station and run through woods, dales and bracken moorland, favored by the region’s grouse. The terminus is Bolton Abbey, situated about a mile and a half from the ruins of the 12th Century Priory. Bolton Abbey is also the country estate of the Duke of Devonshire. The Settle-Carlisle Railway
The 72-mile trip begins in West Yorkshire at Settle, and then wends its way through the grit-capped, Cumbrian fells. In just over 2 hours, passengers pass over 17 viaducts (including the most famous 24-arched Ribblehead Viaduct) and under 14 tunnels. Finally, the train leaves the dales behind and threads its way through gentle hills and market towns, on its way to the border city of Carlisle. Daily service is diesel powered, though on occasion, special steam and diesel charters service the line. |
|
TM
More
recently, the West Yorkshire dales were featured in the film “Calendar
Girls.” It was on long walks, and in deep discussion in those dales that
Helen Mirren and Julie Walters cooked-up an original idea for their Women’s
Institute fundraiser. We’ve seen their Yorkshire grit. In fact, we even know
why they needed “bigger buns!” However, to really experience the magic of
Yorkshire and the North of England, you have to get out into the moors and
moods, hills and history of the place!
Even
today, there is no more fitting—or fantastic-- way of penetrating the soul,
scenery and psyche of the region than through its remarkable railway
adventures!
The
‘Great Hall’ is filled with “Giants in Railway History”-- like the blazing
blue, 1938 Mallard, which, with its speed of 126 mph still holds the record
for the fastest steam locomotive on earth! You’ll also find the “Flying
Scotsman” and modern classics like the Japanese bullet train. 
A
new out-station was recently opened at the end of October at Shildon, about
50 miles away from the NRM at York. It includes historic workshops, a 6,000
sq. foot building to house 60 vehicles of the NRM museum, classrooms, and a
café, as well as public art, picnic and play facilities!
The
North Yorkshire Moors Railway begins at Pickering Station. And according to
the volunteer officials who run the railroad, when you enter Pickering
Station, it’s 1937. On the southbound platform, a creaky, old bicycle leans
against a hand-cart loaded with dented milk churns. In the stationmaster’s
office, stacks of brown paper and string-tied parcels are still piled
high.Yes, somehow you do feel that you have stepped into the past.
The
line twists and turns through the wooded valley. It chugs up to the summit
at Newton Dale Halt, through to one of its most popular attractions at
Goathland, A.K.A, "Aidensfield," from the YTV series "Heartbeat." From
Goathland Station, the train steams on toward its terminus at Grosmont where
it plunges down one of the steepest, and most scenic, railway gradients in
the country.
Keighley
& Worth Valley Railway
The
Darlington Railway Center & Museum, located in an elegant 1842 railway
station, is home to George’s Stephenson’s world-famous “Locomotion No. 1.”
It was this engine that astounded on-lookers in 1825, with its blistering
speeds of 12-15 mph, while heading the first public, passenger-carrying
steam train in the world on the Stockton and Darlington Railway!
Embsay
(near Rylstone and Skipton) is the land of the “Calendar Girls”—as well as a
number of other uncommonly bold and beautiful Yorkshire creations including
rare wetland plants, such as the Bee Orchid. 
The
Settle-Carlisle Railway was advertised as the most picturesque route to
Scotland in Victorian times. It still qualifies.