Michael A. Vanns - The North Yorkshire Moors Railway

The up starting signal at Goathland station, a fine example made for the North Eastern Railway (NER) by McKenzie & Holland of Worcester. It was recovered by the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) from Barlby Crossing, Selby and erected at Goathland in 1972 and then repositioned to the location illustrated here in 1987. (Author)

O ne of the most interesting aspects of creating the three books in the Heritage Railway series was trying to account for the reasons why the railways have developed in the way they have after they were taken out of British Railways ownership. Obviously there have been many factors, ranging from the physical constraints of the route to the resources available to maintain and run trains. But perhaps the fundamentals of preservation and operation, and the way these two have been balanced out over the years, have influenced the appearance of heritage railways more than any management, staffing or financial issues. Because the initial aim of the Main Line Steam Trust was the preservation of a section of main line, it could be argued that the goal for the Great Central Railway in Leicestershire has been more towards the recreation of a main line with appropriate track layouts and signalling, compared to the original aim of the North York Moors Historical Railway Trust (NYMHRT), formed in 1972, that was To advance the education of the public in the history and development of railway locomotion by the maintenance in working order of the historic and scenic railway line between the towns of Grosmont and Pickering.

Although this statement has been considerably refined over the years, especially since the organisation became a registered museum requiring the words preservation and conservation to appear in the aims of the Trust, that initial emphasis on the running of trains does help explain why many original features on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) have been sacrificed since 1967 to provide better facilities for passengers and the maintenance of locomotives and carriages. It helps explain why so many metal-clad sheds have been erected and why track maintenance and renewal and signalling on the line have developed in the way they have. It is also important to record that the NYMR has been run as a heritage line for longer than it was in the hands of the LNER and British Railways combined, and those businesses also had to adapt to changing circumstances. But perhaps more importantly, with the exception of the original Whitby & Pickering Railway Company, no organisation before the NYMR had to operate the line as a self-contained unit. Locomotive and carriage maintenance did not have to be carried out and stock stored permanently somewhere between Pickering and Grosmont. Civil engineering and permanent way equipment and heavy lifting gear did not have to be accommodated either, all that being brought in from elsewhere when needed. In many ways, since 1967 the NYMR has had to become a self-contained LNER. All those issues and many more have combined to make the NYMR what it is today and it makes a fascinating story.

Repatriated from Greece in 1984, restored and named Dame Vera Lynn , War Department 2-10-0 is on the 1 in 49 climb between Grosmont and Goathland during the summer of 1989. (Authors collection)

Early Days to Best Years

W hen the Whitby & Pickering Railway (W&PR) was completed in 1836, it was already old-fashioned. Since 1830 the Liverpool & Manchester Railway (L&MR) had been running trains on a double train main line, demonstrating emphatically that the future was steam powered, and within a few years (1838), an even more ambitious railway the London & Birmingham Railway (L&BR) would be completed, one that in the twenty-first century still remains the spine of Britains railway network.

When it opened, horses pulled single coaches on the single track W&PR at almost the same speeds as stage coaches on the countrys network of turnpike roads, whereas on the L&MR and L&BR, coaches were coupled together to form trains capable of transporting many more people than a single stage coach and they were pulled by modern steam locomotives that travelled at three or four times the speed of horses.