The line did not pass through Forge Valley, but the station in the village of West Ayton was named after it to avoid confusion with another station—Great Ayton—already owned by the North Eastern Railway.

However, due to local land owners objecting and the fact that the railway between Whitby and Scarborough had not been built, the idea was scrapped.

[3] The line ran quite close to the Pickering to Scarborough Road (now the A170), and some of its stations were some distance from the villages that it claimed to serve.

As a consequence, the rural bus service that started up in the 20th century took patronage away from the line, and, despite using steam railcars and push-pull trains, the passenger numbers dropped.

Whilst the other stations on the line are completely restored, Forge Valley is now currently in use by North Yorkshire County Council as a road and highways depot.