A shot of the Whitby-Middlesbrough platform at Grosmont Station, change here for Pickering and all intermediate stations. Alan Woods tell us: “The locomotive number is 69877.” The junction point of two railways, the Whitby-Pickering and the Whitby-Middlesbrough lines. Both lines still traversable by train, the Middlesbrough-Whitby Line having escaped the Beeching axe by virtue of remoteness (it wasn’t economically viable to replace the routes with a bus service) and the Grosmont-Pickering Line by the good fortune of becoming the first Heritage railway; The North Yorkshire Moors Railway. A line I’ve been travelling regularly since they had ”Salmon”. Long may it flourish!
Thanks to Alan Woods for the update.
I don’t think the North Yorkshire Moors Railway was the first heritage railway. Certainly the Talyllyn Railway, the Middleton Railway in Leeds, the Severn Valley Raiway and the Bluebell Railway all ran public passenger trains before the NYMR – the Bluebell Railway as early as 1960.