Become one with the Geek!
Could be a long one this. As it may require a full on Geek out! Yesterday was my birthday Present: A day out to the North Yorkshire Moor Railway!
I may have previously mentioned my admiration of the steam form of train travel and quite frankly it was a brilliant day, a perfect synergy between Geek and his Geekness. Hence the sign.
and so we went, where the sign directed and that place was here, Pickering Train station! from here the journey began.
We stopped at two stations before the end station of Whitby. These were Goathland and Grosmont. Or as other people may know them, Heartbeat town aidensfield and steam train engine shed central!
Here is Goathland and the station there which is buried deeply into the valley, on top of which sits a quite lovely little village.
and just to prove it, thene there is an authentic Ford Anglia Policecar used in the series!
This compares to all the other pieces of 'authentic' as used in the series pieces doted about, very much like Catholic relics, which if true means the Cross, would have have been 200 ft high and a mile thick. So you have Goathland advertising almost every piece of of Tat you can imagine, with some reference to and photo of some actor associated with, Heartbeat. But saying that, it was a gorgeous village. Oh and the tearoom at the station, nice location but really, really, really bad coffee. But when a train comes into a station looking this good, kind of makes you forget out the Coffee.
So then we are off to Grosmont, the veritble Hub of the network, and home to the Train yard graveyard.
The joy that is Grosmont is the engine yards and here are a few of some fine examples of British engineering and manufacturing, one of these long since squashed.
This is where they restore the engines and carriages I believe and are volunteers, labelled, 'enthusiasts'. Sadly I live too far away to nip around on a sunday afternoon but the temptation is there.
We then headed to the final stop, Whitby.
Which was a fairly nice place. I have to say it is like most other coastal places that are now seaside resorts, in that they were probably better a 100 years ago, before planners planned and chavs could travel combining to ruin these places. You can see in some places an absolute jewell architecturally but is swamped by so much dross which overpowers the niceness. It was an interesting place to visit though with some pretty views;
I did fail to catch the best view of the day when queued in a very long queue for fish and chips at the Magpie, supposedly the worlds best chip shop. It isn't. The fish itself was, admittedly, very nice. The chips, not great I am afraid. Poor do. But while in this queue I was flashed a smile by a lady about my wifes age, I guess. Which is always nice, though call me picky, I do prefer smiles that contain more than the 7 teeth which she possessed in her top row. Mind you, what she lacked in teeth, she made up for in Tattoos! (perhaps that's how she paid for the tatoos?)
though all in all it was a great birthday treat for an anorak and is heartily recommended for any body who wants a day out.
I may have previously mentioned my admiration of the steam form of train travel and quite frankly it was a brilliant day, a perfect synergy between Geek and his Geekness. Hence the sign.
and so we went, where the sign directed and that place was here, Pickering Train station! from here the journey began.
We stopped at two stations before the end station of Whitby. These were Goathland and Grosmont. Or as other people may know them, Heartbeat town aidensfield and steam train engine shed central!
Here is Goathland and the station there which is buried deeply into the valley, on top of which sits a quite lovely little village.
and just to prove it, thene there is an authentic Ford Anglia Policecar used in the series!
This compares to all the other pieces of 'authentic' as used in the series pieces doted about, very much like Catholic relics, which if true means the Cross, would have have been 200 ft high and a mile thick. So you have Goathland advertising almost every piece of of Tat you can imagine, with some reference to and photo of some actor associated with, Heartbeat. But saying that, it was a gorgeous village. Oh and the tearoom at the station, nice location but really, really, really bad coffee. But when a train comes into a station looking this good, kind of makes you forget out the Coffee.
So then we are off to Grosmont, the veritble Hub of the network, and home to the Train yard graveyard.
The joy that is Grosmont is the engine yards and here are a few of some fine examples of British engineering and manufacturing, one of these long since squashed.
This is where they restore the engines and carriages I believe and are volunteers, labelled, 'enthusiasts'. Sadly I live too far away to nip around on a sunday afternoon but the temptation is there.
We then headed to the final stop, Whitby.
Which was a fairly nice place. I have to say it is like most other coastal places that are now seaside resorts, in that they were probably better a 100 years ago, before planners planned and chavs could travel combining to ruin these places. You can see in some places an absolute jewell architecturally but is swamped by so much dross which overpowers the niceness. It was an interesting place to visit though with some pretty views;
I did fail to catch the best view of the day when queued in a very long queue for fish and chips at the Magpie, supposedly the worlds best chip shop. It isn't. The fish itself was, admittedly, very nice. The chips, not great I am afraid. Poor do. But while in this queue I was flashed a smile by a lady about my wifes age, I guess. Which is always nice, though call me picky, I do prefer smiles that contain more than the 7 teeth which she possessed in her top row. Mind you, what she lacked in teeth, she made up for in Tattoos! (perhaps that's how she paid for the tatoos?)
though all in all it was a great birthday treat for an anorak and is heartily recommended for any body who wants a day out.
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