North Yorkshire Moors Railway

In 2007, the railway started to run regular services over the 6-mile (9.7 km) section of the Esk Valley Line north of Grosmont to Whitby.In 2014, a second platform was opened at Whitby which allowed the NYMR to run an enhanced service and led to passenger numbers in the same year of nearly 350,000 people.[10] During most years, the trains run daily from the beginning of April to the end of October, and on weekends and selected holidays during the winter, with no service from 24 to 27 December.Their three main achievements were cutting a 120 yards (110 m) tunnel through rock at Grosmont, constructing a rope-worked incline system at Beck Hole and traversing the marshy and deep Fen Bog using a bed of timber and sheep fleeces.However, in his controversial report Dr Beeching declared that the Whitby-Pickering line was uneconomic and listed it for closure; the last passenger service ran on 6 March 1965 with freight continuing until July 1966.[21] The line was used in June 1965 to house the Royal Train for the Duke of Edinburgh's visit to the RAF Fylingdales early warning station.[35] On 12 June 2023, King Charles III arrived at the Pickering station on the British Royal Train, pulled by the LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman locomotive, "after a trip through the countryside on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway", according to a news report.[53] Reinstating this missing rail link was adopted as a policy objective by the North Yorkshire County Council some years ago; the NYMHRT board agreed to support this policy in principle, whilst having reservations about its implementation as they believed the necessary upgrade works were costly and that it would harm their business stating that they had concerns about "the effect on the railway".[58] During 2017, the NYMR announced it was applying to the Heritage Lottery Fund, as part of a new appeal to keep the whole preserved railway running for the next 50 years.Michael Palin hosted and produced an episode of the first series of Great Railway Journeys of the World, titled "Confessions of a Train Spotter".[69] Other appearances include Casualty, Brideshead Revisited, All Creatures Great and Small, The Royal, Poirot, the Sherlock Holmes television series,[70] and the films Testament of Youth, Phantom Thread[71] and The Runaways.[74] Goathland station features in the 1985 music video for Simply Red's Holding Back the Years, along with BR Standard Class 4MT Tank No.The production of Downton Abbey film used Pickering station on the railway in its opening scene; the train is shown travelling through several communities.