Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Tag: railway

  • Siberia on the Moors — A Lost Railway Community

    Siberia on the Moors — A Lost Railway Community

    For nigh on seventy years, this exposed stretch on Greenhow Moor, with its splendid panorama of the Cleveland Plain and beyond, served as home for a community of railway workers and their families. Sited at the top of the Ingleby Incline, a cluster of building once stood here, in a location so remote and exposed…

  • Low Baring: The end of the line

    Low Baring: The end of the line

    The former terminus of the east branch of the Rosedale Ironstone Railway. The branch line was built to serve the mines on the east side of the dale. It was opened in August 1865 by the North Eastern Railway although it is likely construction may have begun by the mine owners. The 4¾ mile route…

  • The Cleveland Plain from Ingleby Incline

    The Cleveland Plain from Ingleby Incline

    As I was struggling up the Ingleby Incline I spotted the carving of the top hatted gentleman about ¾ of the way up and a nascent connection with one of today’s historical anniversaries formed. I have taken a photo of the carving before. Nothing much has changed so I thought I might as well reuse…

  • River Tweed

    River Tweed

    The River Tweed, traditionally designated as the border between Scotland and England since 1018 when Malcolm II, King of all Scotland, claimed the River Tweed as the boundary of his kingdom. But Berwick-upon-Tweed’s strategic importance, on the north bank of the river, has meant the town has undergone several changes between the kingdoms of Scotland…

  • Incline Top

    Incline Top

    My morning constitutional today featured a one way run from Bank Foot to Clay Bank over Urra Moor. And to save a bit of time I used the old railway incline to ascend to the moor top. I’d forgotten how much of a slog it is. Nowadays, I am, more often than not, descending on…

  • Old railway bridge at Swainby Ellers

    Old railway bridge at Swainby Ellers

    The fern that has found a home on the stonework of this old railway bridge first caught my eye. Now I could confidently write it’s a Lady Fern but that would be just a sheer guess. Ferns are notoriously difficult to identify, and it would take some climbing ability for a closer look. An ability…

  • Ingleby Incline

    Ingleby Incline

    The old railway incline for the Rosedale Branch ironstone railway. Almost a mile long with a maximum gradient of 1 in 5. A rake of trucks full of iron ore would be lowered down by a steel rope, which looped around a drum at the top and pulled up a rake of empty trucks. Speeds…

  • End of Paddy Waddell’s Railway

    End of Paddy Waddell’s Railway

    I’ve written about Paddy Waddell’s Railway before, the railway that never was. A grand plan devised in the 1870s to link the ironstone mines at Glaisdale with the North East Railway at Skelton. Embankments were built and cuttings excavated and just one bridge was constructed here at Rake House near Lealholm just before the line…

  • Paddy Waddell’s Railway

    Paddy Waddell’s Railway

    Paddy Waddell’s Railway was never built. A pipedream project beset with problems from the outset, politics and competition from other railway companies. The official name would have been The Cleveland Extension Mineral Railway and link the ironstone mines at Glaisdale with the North East Railway at Skelton. The embankment and cutting on the left were…

  • Cromford and High Peak Railway

    Cromford and High Peak Railway

    Stopped off in the Derwent Valley, a Unesco World Heritage site on account of its 18th/19th-century cotton mills considered to be the birth of the large-scale factory production. It was where Richard Arkwright introduced the latest technology at the time for spinning cotton. But ignoring the mills I headed up the 1 in 9 Sheep…