Viktoria´s Notebook: North Yorkshire Moor Railway

The train coming into Pickering.

It seems as if we have made a a steam train ride on pretty much every trip to England, and on a few trips to other places as well. It never gets old, it´s an adventure every time. This time, we went from Pickering to Whitby, and the idea was to have a restful day after our walk to Long Nab, when I contracted a terrible hay fever that took a few days to shake - and a boatride that really aired the pollen from my sinuses.

I wanted to stop and take a closer look at two stations. One is Goathland, which is famous - it is where Harry Potter gets off, at Hogsmead station, when he goes to Hogwarts, and it is where the very popular series "Heartbeat" is made. It was also used in "All Creatures Great and Small", which I used to see when I was a kid. The other station I wanted to see, Grosmont, has also appeared in "Heartbeat".

It turned out one train was cancelled, so in order to get my wish we had to walk "The Rail Trail" from Goathland to Grosmont, along a closed down stretch of rail. We weren´t really dressed for it, but a 3½ mile walk on what is more or less a road is not much to dress for. It was a very interesting walk, although it probably didn´t help my allergy any.

Who wouldn´t want to be a train engine driver?

Arriving at Goathland.

The train moves on to Whitby and leaves us behind.

The fences weren´t really holding the sheep in, if they wanted an excursion, too.

We saw a few old wrecks along the line.

The archetypal English landscape.

On the left is the original tunnel (Grosmont was called Tunnel when it was first opened) that the horse-drawn railway from 1836 went through. When they started with the steam engines, they had to build a bigger tunnel.