Whitby and Pickering Railway

Until the turnpike to Pickering was opened in 1759, Whitby was better connected to the rest of the country by sea than by land; even then the difficult climb over the high moors was an obstacle.

Stephenson's report favoured a horse-worked railway to Pickering and his conclusion was accepted at a meeting in Whitby on 14 September 1832.

George Stephenson planned to ascend from the valley of the Murk Esk at Beckhole to the high moors at Goathland by means of a 1,500-yard (1,400 m) long rope-worked incline at an average gradient of 1 in 15.

Stephenson in fact acted mainly in an advisory capacity, having delegated the work to his chief engineer Frederick Swanwick.

The surviving W&P minute books in the National Archives show that supplies from the Midlands travelled by narrow boat to Gainsborough, where they were transshipped to coasters for forwarding to Whitby; others travelled by boat to Malton on the Derwent Navigation and were forwarded to Pickering by ox-cart.

As one commentator put it "This is a good example of careful and conscientious work, no unnecessary expenditure, but a railway suited to the needs of the time, constructed at the smallest possible cost.

The W&P was never a well off company and the directors were anxious to carry passengers and goods at the earliest opportunity and on Monday 8 June 1835 the line between Whitby and the Tunnel Inn (now Grosmont) was opened, and its first class coach, Premier left Whitby at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, returning about 8 o'clock.

[8] When the whole line opened on 26 May 1836, the W&P operated a regular passenger service which connected at Pickering with the stagecoach to York and the rest of the developing railway network.

There is a recorded instance of a ship from the Baltic docking at Whitby and its captain finding orders awaiting him to proceed to Liverpool.

He took the W&P coach to Pickering connecting to York where he boarded a train for Manchester (connecting by coach over the incomplete part of the Leeds and Manchester Railway) and completed his journey to Liverpool by train – the whole journey only took hours, whereas it could have taken many days only a few years earlier.

Through rail journeys became possible from Whitby to the industrial districts of the West Riding, Hull, Manchester, Liverpool, London and other destinations.

By the following year a second track had been laid and was passed for use by Her Majesty's Railway Inspector Captain J. W. Coddington, RE in a report dated 8 June 1847 following an inspection three days earlier.

Following the discovery of apparent financial irregularities by George Hudson, the Y&NM appointed a committee of investigation whose four printed reports includes severe criticism of the purchase and conversion of the W&P:[10] Your Committee have no precise information with respect to the manner in which this purchase was brought about, but it would seem that the proposal came in the first instance from the directors of the Whitby & Pickering Company.

At that meeting, the directors informed the shareholders that they had been in communication with Mr.Hudson for the sale of the line to the York & North Midland Railway Company and requested their authority to continue the negotiation, which was given.

The original cost of the railway was £135,000, but at the time of the negotiation it was scarcely paying the expenses of working it; £30,000 was the extreme market value of the entire concern, so that the prospective increased value must have been estimated at £50,000.