A History of the Scarborough and Whitby Railway

so [Music] i'm in scarborough on the north east coast of yorkshire i'm about to start walking what is nowadays known as the cinder track but was originally the line of the scarborough and whitby railway which opened in 1885 and finally closed to passenger traffic in march 1965 along with many other lines as a result of the notorious beaching report scarborough borough council acquired the 21 miles of track bed and since then it has served as a walking and cycle route those who keep their eyes open on this short journey will be treated not only to some lovely landscape but an insight into some fascinating details about the history of the area its people its industry and a way of life the memory of which is disappearing beneath brambles and overgrown verges in a manner reminiscent of children's steam engine books from the 30s the trains on this railway needed to be reversed in order to reach the terminal stations here just outside scarborough station itself the train was reversed to commence its journey to whitby and it immediately entered the first of two tunnels on the line the tunnel was constructed in 1882 and was 260 yards long it was built using the cut and cover method which entailed digging a trench building the tunnel structure itself and then covering it up again the tunnel led to a goods yard that carried the macabre name of gallows close this signpost marks the beginning of the route not very picturesque so far you might say but even here we can scrape beneath the surface of what we see today to get a picture of how things were back then from 1863 plans were made and proposals put forward to construct a railway line but it wasn't until 1872 the building work actually commenced [Music] a shortage of capital combined with the challenge of having to engineer the route over difficult terrain continually stalled construction efforts which continued only in fits and starts for a period of over 13 years [Music] the official opening a ceremony marked by an inaugural train run did not happen until the 16th of july 1885. the first stop on the line was the station here at scolby just a few yards over there which was demolished in 1974. no trace of the buildings or platform now remain the original route to the station took the line over scorby beck via a cast iron bridge but after the appalling taybridge collapse in 1879 when over 70 passengers were killed engineers grew more cautious and the bridge here at scorby was dismantled in 1881 without a train ever having passed over and replaced by this rather striking four-arch brick viaduct at a cost of 4188 pounds the next village on the line is burniston there was no station here but it is from this point that the trail begins to enter the countryside proper it's just under a mile from burniston to the second station on the line clouten this one has survived and is today run as a tea room for visitors so steve you're the lucky man who lives in this beautiful place yeah yes beautiful garden tell me when did you first get the station we bought the station in 1992 after i came across with my previous job and how long had it how long had it been out of action by then well the railway's closed in 65 yeah a couple of a couple of people bought it privately yeah and it was on the market from i believe 1988 until we bought it in 1992. and do you have to do a lot of work to it yes yeah we we like the idea of the railway station wanted to keep the feel of the railway station but obviously we modernize things but uh yes we would every day on it 22 years and this is the middle bit is the station masters houses that's correct i think you tend to find that the the two-story parts of the house but to the working parts of the station or the single-story part is there still anything like a ticket hall in there that i mean that you converted into something no the the ticket office was combined with the station masters room the booking office which is that one down there which is now one of our bedding breakfast rooms and the lounge our lounges was the waiting room and the ladies waiting room okay this is new we put this extension on here to balance the building up and you made a real feature of the platform it's like a sort of garden border yes originally it went straight across we we dropped it obviously for access yeah and i hear you've got some camping coaches here we have one camping coach yes oscar our camping coach which we brought in in 2003. can you tell me what what are camping coaches and and what purpose did they serve well i don't know about the prices but you i suppose your class was a cheap holiday really the families came spent the week in them um quite often got there some of the supplies from the station master the milk and the eggs bought things locally so for holidays rather than just for people who needed to stay somewhere overnight while they were traveling tonight there were holidays they were quite official i believe some of the british rails brochures had the camping coaches and the prices and it was it's an official thing with the railways yeah but they do they have their own kitchens and stuff yes yes i think they were fairly basic nut as we have now but uh certainly there's a home away from home when you're on holiday with your children and they're quite a feature of this line yes uh i believe that's of the stations on this line that were just haven't white and i believe filing deals that didn't have the camping coaches the others did scorby station closed a few years before this one and some of their buildings were actually turned into station cottages yeah looks as good as coaches many many stations on the line have them yes you keep the tradition going by renting this one out we do yes we do yeah it's very good very popular we uh again we're trying to keep the feel of the railways but modern failure everything that you want is in there maybe we could have a look at it there's a chance for that you certainly can let's go another thing right shall we let's have a look inside thank you so these the original carriage seats are they yes they are we have them re-stuffed and recovered but the springs are the same at the same position oh it did raises one or five inches yeah it's been a british real sound doesn't it you would need that when you travel in some ways a lot more comfortable than today's yes yes this is a beautifully equipped camping cottage fully equipped kitchen yes everything's in that you need it's all slightly narrower than normal because i couldn't get the full width stuff through the doors but everything's in that you need so you see it's it's it's watertight but it's in some ways vulnerable to the weather it is uh the problems we get uh mainly around the window frames because they have rubber seals which obviously perish and these are now 50 years old yeah so i have to improvise and do what i can each winter we redecorate somewhere usually this room it's squeezing the wind you see it does indeed 34 tons it moves in the wind yes thanks very much indeed steve it's been my pleasure thank you very much thank you so how far is it from here it's just over two miles north i better get going okay all the best yeah take care bye bye a gentle climb for the next two miles takes us to hayburn wike [Music] this station including its platforms was originally built of wood then it was rebuilt with a station building being moved to the other side of the track [Music] the station masters house built in 1892 for just 330 pounds still survives till then the hayburn wike hotel a short distance away provided his accommodation in the early 1950s the station building received electricity and was brought into use as a camping cottage visitors today can take the opportunity to leave the track bed here and take a walk in the beautiful woods below the pub that lead down to a secluded rocky shore [Music] in times gone by the infamous buccaneers and smugglers who frequented the north yorkshire coast would have found it an ideal spot to land their illicit goods [Music] another mile and a half up the line and we arrive at stantondale a more substantial station and today a private residence with both platforms surviving the station here looks much as it would have done a hundred years ago it's more peaceful and pretty perhaps but the ghosts of all that coming and going still seem to hang over the place not in an eerie or sinister sense quite the opposite it's that peculiar warmth that the stamp of human activity seems to leave behind what i call the romance of history the siding constructed here was to service a local quarry trucks were loaded with stone which was then taken down the line to scarborough and after a two mile steep gradient of one in 41 we come to what is the real ghost town of the line at 631 feet the highest point on the route raven's car today's visitor sees only the sad remains of the station which was originally called peak it is hard to imagine that this station was at one point intended to serve a purpose-built holiday resort a newly constructed coastal jewel to rival scarborough itself but which in fact never materialized [Music] raven's car or peak station originally had just one platform but in 1908 a passing loop was constructed in timber and both platforms were provided with wooden waiting rooms it's here that we get a glimpse of the continuous bickering that took place between the scarborough and whitby railway who owned the line itself and the north eastern railway the company that operated the trains passing along it the north eastern railway requested in 1886 that a station masters house be built but when nine years later it still had not happened the ner decided enough was enough and closed down the station completely on the 6th of march 1895. this almost petulant action was exactly what was needed to push the s w into finally giving in and building the required house the station with its now properly accommodated station master was duly reopened on first of april 1896. in 1895 the ravenscar estate company bought the whole of the vast peak house estate for ten thousand pounds and great plans were made for the construction of a resort town to the east of the station of the type that was becoming increasingly popular the length of the coast complete with holiday homes tea rooms hotels public gardens and shops the area was divided into over 1500 building plots streets were laid out pavements and drains constructed [Music] but what the planners had not taken into account were the bitter north sea winds to which this exposed hilltop site was vulnerable and even more short-sighted this the absence of a convenient route down the cliffs to the seafront below which had no sand just a rocky shore the result was that the town was never built and in 1913 the company went bankrupt it had however succeeded in changing the name from peak to ravenscar in 1897. raven hall originally called peak house was built in 1774 and was once owned by dr francis willis the physician famous for having treated king george iii's madness although willis's methods were primitive and brutal by today's standards he earned celebrity status for his efforts and friendship of the king in the long term as well as a generous lifelong pension when the railway was proposed raven hall was in the ownership of one w h hammond who insisted that the line must have a tunnel although this was not in fact necessary and a cutting would have been much cheaper the 279 yard curving tunnel was actually completed in 1876 but was almost fossically found to be out of line and had to be rebuilt in 1883 climbing up the incredibly steep gradient towards raven's car on cold wintry days steel on frozen steel curving their way out through this tunnel was a notoriously difficult task for engine drivers of the day from raven's car station to the next halt at filing hall is just over three miles with a gradient of one in 39 the steepest part of the line which offers fabulous views north over the expanse of robin hood's bay just south of the northern tunnel portal the line passes through an area known for a certain kind of industrial procedure which had been operated here since long before the railway arrived alum a fixative in the textile dying process have been produced here since 1640 it was a process which involved burning vast quantities of locally mined shale which was then steeped in vats and blended with large quantities of human urine harvested from donors in the streets of london similar procedure was used to fix dyes in ancient roman times and to this day in pompeii you can see depositories where passing customers could relieve themselves and earn a few coins in the process a similar business was doubtless thriving on street corners in 17th century london after which that fulls of the stinking liquid were shipped up here only to be returned as finished alum when the procedure was complete the remains of the factory where the alum was made have been excavated and can be visited you can see the remains of the old alum works down there on the edge of the cliffs cheaper and better fixatives were later discovered and the industry here closed down in the 1860s in 1900 whitaker's opened a brick factory on the site of the old alum industrial works to produce bricks for the fantasy resort being planned at raven's car which never actually got built but the brit manufacturers were confident enough about the project to have the word ravenscar inscribed on every single brick until it became a brand in itself and they can still be found in the area to this day they continued in production until about 1940 and raven's car bricks were used in the construction of the odeon theater in scarborough continuing round stoop brow with spectacular views the line passes the hamlet of howdale and then swings north to cross stup beck by the largest embankment on the line it contains some 400 thousand cubic yards of shale brought down from the old alum works the railway now passes beneath a high road bridge with some fine brickwork in its arch before crossing a stream and a road to enter filing hall station the halt is in a very poor state today but there are still some remains of what was once here buried beneath the undergrowth passing the station master's house the line descends to cross milbeck by another embankment then up through a cutting from which you emerge to see the houses of filing thorpe and robin hood's bay camping coaches would have been passed just before entering the station robin hood's bay was the busiest station on the line and most of the station buildings originally lining the southern platform remain to this day though put a different use the brick built signal box is now a small workshop and the wooden refreshment room now provides offices for the northeast geology trust the goods warehouse has become part of the filing dale's village hall the northern platform with its wooden waiting rooms and water tower have completely disappeared right we've now come to what was once robin hood's base station is now a private home the home of rob reimer who's very kindly agreed to show us around and uh his front door is what was once the waiting room hello ellen morning right nice to see you all right yeah good man thank you very much for joining around love too excellent so we come straight into what was originally the waiting room now your your living room i guess that's right yeah so how long have you had the station well i bought the place in 1992 and i've been living here full-time since 2000. it was used as a cafe and then a cafe gallery in the early days in the early 90s right and then i took uh took residence full-time in 2000. was it private house before you had it no no it was an old folks meeting rooms but what's really interesting about this room is the hatch through to um yeah i gather is the ticket masters office on the other side that's right yes yes they'll have uh formed an orderly queue to uh to buy the tickets because it was very busy it was probably one of the busiest on the line on the whole of the line on the way to scarborough line at the time because of the population of robin hood babe i just guess it was a nice place you know yeah i think people promoted it quite well um so yeah so they come in the door over there they'll sit around the queue here for the uh to buy the tickets through the hatch yeah uh in fact there was a uh some i don't can see them down there the the ends of the uh wooden posts there there used to be like a barrier stopped them rushing to buy the tickets so they found an orderly queue and in summer that that queue might even have gone out the door it might well have done it might well have done yeah we worked out was probably two or three million people through this room in this in its time yeah yeah so when we get the old one wandering in now thinking it's a public building we don't we tell them that don't mind not the first holiday makers yeah [Laughter] let's have a look next door okay sure thanks so now we're on the station masters side and looking at this sort of tongue and groove timber divide you really can get a feel of what it was like in a station master's office at the time i know it's your kitchen and your office now but uh there's definitely that flavor that still exists um some of this furniture says original yes all this is original yeah all the handles original um apart from those that my dad took off a bank in sheffield but all the rest of them are as there were cash drawers i think cash draws yes which is the now the fridge and freezer this is the other side of the hatch of course where we were before uh you can still see the little mark round there where there used to be the rubber carousel for the rubber stamps or the stamper tickets and then these marks around here where they'd sort of uh stamp it and the station master would lean over here yeah so the chap would be looking through here um robin husband yes certainly it's big no problem take his stamp from there stamp it pass it through and bob's your uncle so here in the corner of your of your office is what looks like the original station clock yes it is yeah yeah interestingly enough when i when i bought this place from scrabble council they were wanting to take it out and put it in a museum um and sort of had to negotiate shall we say to make sure it stayed there because it's part of the building it really is part of the building that is the that's the wood oh yes as you can see the mechanics of that the whole thing comes out and uh anyway as you can see it's still it's still ticking away after all these years and they told the station master what time it was but it also told the passengers because yeah isn't there something on the other side there is um there's a mechanism that goes through it's not coupled up now unfortunately so it doesn't work the outside face but the uh the same mechanism what's a clock on the outside so you know as a station plot for the passengers right so yeah and how often do you have to wind it up about once a week yeah once a week it still keeps good timing it still keeps really good time actually yeah it's really good yeah i've had the whole thing out about three times in the last 20 odd years and oiled it and give it a bit of a brush down but that's all amazing that was all very interesting thank you very much thank you nice to see you yeah take care cheers bye thank you the isolated coastal location of the village lent itself to the shady pursuit of smuggling through much of the 18th century after which robin hood's bay became a sort of retirement village for seafarers as with raven's car the coming of the railway attracted building speculators keen to make money out of the seaside resort boom and land was acquired close to the station for development resulting in the 1890s in the construction of residential villas and the victoria hotel the promise of hot and cold running water and spacious rooms proved to be too tempting for many residents of the old bay town and a number of them migrated up the steep hill into these posh modern properties leaving vacant their quaintil cottages close to the sea the newly built railway brought the promised visitors in their hordes and so began the thriving tourist industry which continues to this day our journey now continues out of the station through a cutting and before the line turns to the north opens up to yet another spectacular view this time to the south with a great expanse of sea moorland and the heights of raven's car now heading inland and away from the sea we are greeted by the first view of our destination whitby with its abbey dominating the skyline as it has for over a thousand years the line descends gently from this point to horska station the only one on the line to be built entirely of brick today the station master's house is a private home jeff bailey lives here and used to work on the scarborough and whitby railway as a signalman so it's particularly interesting talking to you jeff because you were actually employed on this line is that right yes i was employed as a relief signalman from 58 uh to 58 59 until 64. for you yeah that when this line was still open then in them days so were you employed by the lner off by the uh scarborough well when i first started on the railways which was in 1948 because it became british rail oh yes but uh in them days we were still wearing any our uniforms right right it was br of course yeah yeah and uh i had to cover all the signal boxes between whitby and pickering actually and west cliffs right through discard traveling between each one yes oh yes by what mode of transport well motorbike anything like that i managed to get to living at clown station house as a rear woman claiming lodging allowance i got the first priority for it okay so i lived at clowton and uh actually the front room of the cloud clown which is now a restaurant cafe my youngest son was born in there was he is 61. same age as me yeah same age as me good year so hello so how many so you finished in 1964 yes uh october 64 because by that time we knew very well that the line will be closing in march 65. and just tell me briefly what a signalman had to do uh when you got to the box well on these on these lines here uh apart from rubbing usb and the station master robinson bay of course he had his own clerk so the single box at robinhood's bay was one by two porter single men but all the rest of them such as well prospective was uh really it was ordinary signaling but um redmonskar statendale and clown the station master took one shift and the porter signalman took the other shift and this is where i ended up by by actually covering for station mars that time right [Music] i think it says smells suspended so in 1964 then it all came to an end for you here unfortunately yeah but you do you you're still very sentimental about the line living on it yeah well um i've been a single man not um 35 years actually yeah and uh it was a job which i enjoyed doing this the pair wasn't all that great i might have can you tell us what it was at the end in 1964 can you remember what the pay was i think i think that releasing on pay at that time would be about 132 seconds a week under 32 shillings a week yeah right [Laughter] it's not not yeah goodness well i think i'm going to have to get moving along the line again now myself otherwise i'm never going to get to whitby [Laughter] very nice to meet you thank you very much thank you it's a terrific scene the waiting rooms are now a bike hire center and cafe though these two railway carriages in the old sidings could give the casual observer the idea that the line is still in use one is let out as accommodation the other is used for bike storage we're now nearing the end of our journey but the most spectacular engineering feat of the line is yet to come the breathtaking larpool viaduct was constructed to carry a single track line over the esque and its valley near whitby these two photographs taken by whitby photographer frank meadows sutcliffe offer a fascinating insight into its construction because of its proximity to the sea and the risk of corrosion the engineers avoided the use of iron employing brick and cement instead the design itself was based on the salt burn viaduct a few miles up the coast construction began in october 1882 and was completed almost exactly two years later in october 1884. the resident engineer was charles arthur rowlandson and the contractors were john waddle and sons the same who had built the replacement brick viaduct up the line at scolby it's a structure of 13 archers made up of 5 million bricks it's 915 feet long with a rail level 120 foot high the foundations on land were excavated to the level of rock and formed from slag-based cement the river foundations were excavated in bricklined wells the foundation excavations were complicated by the discovery of oak trees found embedded in the river which required the use of divers to remove them manually from underwater piers 5 6 7 8 and 9 had triple foundations connected above the water level by two semi-circular arches and made of bricks seven deep the viaduct is mentioned in bram stoker's 1897 gothic novel dracula this is a lovely place the little river the esque runs through a deep valley which broadens out as it comes near the harbour a great viaduct runs across with high piers through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is the valley is beautifully green and it is so steep that when you're on the high land on either side you look right across it unless you're near enough to see down having crossed the viaduct our journey on the line ends when we connect with the line from sans end to whitby trains would continue the short distance to whitby westcliff station and then reverse for the descent to whitby town station curving under the viaduct over which they had just traveled and so as a result of dr beeching's report the mid-1960s left much of rural england bereft of the puff whistle soot and steam of the local train network here between scarborough and whitby the line also closed down it had never made a profit but came close to doing so during the 1930s it was certainly a fine piece of british engineering which served local people and local industries and for that reason deserves to have its story told today most of the track continues to be put to good use as a cycling and hiking trail giving pleasure to many walkers and cyclists just as it gave immense pleasure to users of the line during its 80 years of operation it must have been a fantastic journey by steam all those years ago but all is not lost it's a pretty good walk now goodbye [Music] you

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Id: ZLe93osemGs

Length: 37min 30sec (2250 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 08 2022