Steaming over the North Yorkshire Moors

Steaming Over the North Yorkshire Moors is the story of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, a pinnacle of the rail preservation movement. Author Robin Jones, editor of Heritage Railway magazine, tells the story of how the line began in 1836 as Rocket inventor George Stephenson’s Whitby & Pickering Railway, its conversion to a steam railway and its years under the London & North Eastern Railway and British Railways before its closure by Dr Beeching – with the accompanying protests.

The line would later be saved by volunteers and reopened step by step. Eventually, in a ground-breaking move, services were extended back over the main line to Whitby. Today the line regularly receives upwards of 350,000 visitors a year from across the UK, and indeed the world.

The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is now by far the most popular steam railway in Britain and probably the world, not only because of its stunning moorland scenery and magnificent main locomotive fleet, but also because it featured in the prime time ITV 1960s police drama Heartbeat for 18 years, fans of which are still drawn to what is already a tourism hotspot today.
Moors Steam also features the story of the line’s locomotives, the flagship being A4 streamlined Pacific No. 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, which is the British post-war steam speed record holder.