The Howard's Excellent Adventure: YORKSHIRE MOORS

The North Yorkshire Moors is a national park, which until about 2000 BC was a forested area, and we have a multitude of ancestors to thank for removing most of the trees and giving today's generation a stark, barren landscape.

It is however, a beautiful place, with countless number of small villages dotted around the area, all with a pub or two. I noticed in Yorkshire that although many villages no longer have a post office or a general store, the pub seems to have survived, even in this age of Police Breath Testing and smoking restrictions. It must tell you something about the resilience and priorities of the Yorkshireman (and woman). They can go without food and stamps, but they still need their beer.

The North York Moors also plays host to one of the UK's best preserved steam railway lines, naturally the North York Moors Railway (NYMR), like most of these organisations run by volunteers whose parents never bought them a train set when they were young, and so now they play with their very own real big train set.

It's 18 miles runs from the beautiful old market town of Pickering to the village of Grosmont with ocassional trips extended into Whitby. It was part of the old British Rail network but was closed back in the 1960's. It has often featured on English TV shows, most notably 'Heartbeat' where the station at Gaothland is transformed into 'Aidensfield' . Unlike many preserved lines, the NYMR runs every day from March through to October, and is fairly busy most of the time.

We drove to Grosmont, with the plan to catch a train to Pickering, where we would have morning tea and a walk around the town, and then come back as far as Goathland where we would have lunch and a few beers at the Goathland Hotel, which doubles as the 'Aidensfield Arms' in 'Heartbeat' and then get a later train back to Grosmont

The girls on their first full size steam train

Here's Chanelle in the carriage trying to hide from Karen.

"Keep your head down Chloe, she can't find us"

and off we go

Typical countryside that the line passes through

Chloe seems mildly amused by the experience

Chanelle, however, was enthralled by the trip, spending most of her time hanging out of the window

Stopping at Levisham, one of the intermediate stations on the line. All the stations have been restored to a 1950's - 1960's decor, and all have traditional tea rooms

Chanelle explains it all to Karen, "Of course I wasn't hiding from you, mother"

The main street at Pickering

Now there's a good place for morning tea!

On the return journey, she finally got some soot in her eye.

A train pulls into Goathland

For railway buffs, this is an 'A4' class locomotive. This one which lives on the NYMR is named 'Sir Nigel Gresley' after the engineer who designed the locomotive. The aerodynamic design, which is not unlike the high speed trains of today, in 1935 was years ahead of its time. An identical loco to this one, the 'Mallard' is in the National Railway Museum in York, and is the holder of the record of the fastest steam journey in the world, set in 1938.

The NYMR locomotive shed

and so to Goathland, or 'Aidensfield', this is the village green and shops, which are frequently shown in 'Heartbeat'

Scripps' Garage is now a souvenir shop/museum. There's quite a few cars from the 50's and 60's around the place, but this was an out-of-town visitor.