Friday June 7th 2019 For the penultimate day of this tour our coach took us to Keighley railway station. Keighley is one end of the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway [KWVR]. Our journey on this line took us through Oakworth station. This was used as the location of the station in the film The Railway Children. The line finishes at Oxenhope. From Oxenhope our coach took us to the previous village on the line, Haworth. Haworth is a beautiful village on a hill. No big chain shops here. Haworth is also home to the parsonage where the Bronte family lived. It is now a museum that the tourees visited. In the earlier mentioned film, The Railway Children, it was used as the setting of Doctor Forrest’s surgery. Haworth is also the site of the engine sheds for the KWVR. As part of the trip we were given a guided tour of the engine sheds where restoration work is undertaken on old steam and diesel engines. As a Microsoft Excel addict I was particularly pleased to see their works’ planning board. From Haworth we travelled on to Ingrow station to visit the Vintage Carriages Trust. Here old railway carriages are restored and preserved. The carriages are lent to film studios and have appeared in many television programmes and films. Also the little steam locomotive from The Railway Children is situated here. Saturday is the final day of this tour and involves breakfast followed by checkout from the hotel. After saying goodbye […]
02-19YHS17a-Yorkshire by Steam
Thursday 6th June 2019 Today’s trip started with a coach journey to Goathland, familiar to many as the location for the fictional village Aidensfield in the ITV series Heartbeat. Goathland also has a picturesque station on the preserved North Yorkshire Moors Railway [NYMR] which allowed an opportunity for the many rail enthusiasts on the tour to photograph and film the locomotives. From Goathland the coach took us on to Whitby, a beautiful port town. While the tourees went off on their own I had a walk around the town … … and visited the beach. However, I chose not to climb the 199 steps up to the church and Abbey ruins as I am saving that treat for when I revisit Whitby with my wife and daughters in a couple of months time. Instead I did some research to find a good place to take them to for lunch and a beer. I found a really good, glass-sided balcony with views overlooking the harbour. From Whitby the tourees and I caught a steam train to Pickering on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and from Pickering we travelled back to Harrogate and our hotel by coach. At the hotel I took the opportunity of taking a photograph of a very charming and stylish couple on the tour. Not only were they both extremely smartly dressed in period clothing throughout the whole trip, but they had also travelled up to Harrogate in a classic old Bentley. Video of the day: RailDiscoveries Tour […]
Tuesday 4th – Wednesday 5th June 2019 The first day of this tour is a travel day for me, the Tour Manager. Following a train into London and tube from Victoria to King’s Cross I caught the 12:00 train to York and then the 14:11 train on to Harrogate. The tour is based in The Old Swan in Harrogate from where we will travel out each day. The Old Swan is a large period hotel and is renowned for being the hotel where Agatha Christie was found staying when she famously disappeared for 10 days. What interested me was the fact that she checked into the hotel using the name of her then husband’s mistress. From 16:00, for an hour, I waited at reception to meet all the tourees so that I could greet them and give out the details of the evening meal. After breakfast, on the Wednesday, we walked as a group down to Harrogate train station to make the 25 minute train journey to York. Some tourees opted not to join us in York, instead preferring to spend the day in Harrogate. At York Station we were met on the platform by our two local guides. The group duly split into three as some passengers opted not to join the walking tour and set off to explore on their own. I had distributed their return tickets in readiness so that they could travel back to Harrogate on any of the hourly trains at a time of their […]