Sunday morning was spent in Grosmont train station in North Yorkshire.
A railway was brought to Grosmont in 1936 - a horse-worked line serving Whitby to Pickering, the engineer was George Stephenson. The station was constructed in 1845. The line closed in 1965 and was re-opened as the North Yorkshire Moors Railway in 1973. It now carries more passengers than any other heritage railway in the UK and may be the busiest steam heritage line in the world - it carried around 350,000 passengers in 2009. The 18-mile railway is the second-longest standard gauge heritage line in the UK and runs across the North York Moors.
A lovely little station, with all the accoutrements that make train enthusiasts weak at the knees
Well looked after,
all very neat and tidy.
The star of the show, elegant and stylish,
the Bittern.
A Class A4 steam locomotive, it was built for the LNER in 1937 and has had fourteen boilers in her career. Initially it was based in Newcastle and served the famous Flying Scotsman train in the section between King's Cross and Newcastle.
the steam engine room
looking inside
A first class carriage - lots of people inside waiting for the off
All the carriages are this gorgeous, mellow, polished wood
a second class carriage
another carriage - first class
some information
such clean, elegant lines
And then it was time for the off
great puffs of steam
and the noise was deafening
I actually cried out - the noise!
We then went on to look at the Pullman, on a different track
the restaurant car
Leaving the station, past the signal box
past the Station Tavern,
and through this tunnel, believed to be the world's earliest passenger railway tunnel, built between 1833 and 1835 by George Stephenson as part of the Whitby to Pickering Railway. The first carriages to run through this tunnel were horse-drawn and only carried up to 10 passengers .
This brought us to the Locomotive Depot, the workshop and a viewing gallery where we could look at this engine.
Back to the station and another gorgeous train was stationed there
black and shiny
More steam
ready to go
and off....
And what about this one?
Straight out of a children's picture book
Great views of the Yorkshire moors on the way home.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Yorkshire_Moors_Railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4464_Bittern
