The line left the York and Scarborough Railway at a junction north of York and turned eastward, crossing the largely flat terrain of the Vale of York via Stamford Bridge, Pocklington and Market Weighton before making its way over hillier ground via a gap in the Yorkshire Wolds, between Market Weighton and Goodmanham; the line then ran steadily downhill to the River Hull valley past Cherry Burton to a junction with the Hull to Scarborough Line at Beverley.

On 17 May 1845 after being approached by interested parties from Beverley, the York and Midland shareholders agreed to proceed with surveys for the line and its branch.

[n 1][6] George Hudson also acquired the Londesborough Hall estate for £474,000 in an attempt to prevent landowners on the line causing problems for the railway.

[n 2][11] The Leven canal was to be acquired in case of the Y&NMR constructing a Hornsea branch, the others were necessary for the lines to Market Weighton, and were bought at £18,000; £14,404 5s 10d; and £836 15s (1/15 of the price of its parent) respectively.

[24] Total working charges on the line, including maintenance, wages, depreciation, insurance, rents, train running costs, sundries and administration was £7,808.

[20] The compulsory purchase powers of the 1846 act were to expire after three years, with the powers to construct a railway expiring after five; in 1849 the Y&NMR applied for,[n 7] and obtained a second act, authorising the abandonment and replacement of the authorised section of the line from Market Weighton to Cherry Burton with a deviation between the same points.

[28] As a result of the York and North Midland Railway's inquiry into George Hudson's fraud the company found itself needing to reduce expenditure; and construction of the Market Weighton to Beverley section was postponed.

[n 9] The line ran roughly east-northeast out of Market Weighton, turning eastward towards Goodmanham; here the ground was boggy and prone to springs; the line ran on the bed of a diverted stream; there was a skew bridge east of Goodmanham, followed by a climb into the Yorkshire Wolds towards Kiplingcotes, a third of which was at a gradient of 1 in 160, with a peak east of Kiplingcotes at 184 feet (56 m).

[38] During the First World War service were reduced, recovering to pre-war levels in the 1920s; through trains also began to run from Hull to Newcastle using the line.

[43] In the around 1955 British Railways started investigating the use of boom barriers as a replacement for traditional gates, and an experimental installation was made at the level-crossing at Warthill, controlled from a nearby signal box.

[46][42] The CTC was halted with the publication of the Beeching Report of 1963,[42] which recommended that the passenger service on the line ("York-Hull via Beverley") cease, with all stations to be closed.

[47] The line was one of the case studies given in the report; which calculated expenses of £107,500 on an income of £90,400, and estimated that additional savings would be obtained after closure, with over a quarter of the revenue retained by re-routing of through (Hull-York) services.

Of the 13 intermediate stations between York and Beverley, only six (Earswick, Stamford Bridge, Pocklington, Londesborough, Market Weighton and Kiplingcotes) were still open when the line closed in 1965.

As of 2015, much of the former trackbed is still extant, with exceptions within the towns of Pocklington, Stamford Bridge and the York urban area where building development has taken place.

The heavier engineering works east of Market Weighton are more visible, whilst west in the Vale of York parts of the line are no longer evidenced on the ground, more than half of the route is discernible as earthworks or field boundaries.

[55] Several other station buildings survive, including Fangfoss,[56] Warthill, Holtby, Nunburnholme, Londesborough, Cherry Burton, and Kiplingcotes.

[61] In 2004 the East Riding of Yorkshire Council commissioned a report from Carl Bro Group to investigate the feasibility of re-opening the line.

[63] Building development had also taken place on the track bed in Pocklington, Stamford Bridge; with alternative alignments proposed, going around the outskirts of the towns.

[65] The report recommended reinstating a service from Hull via Beverley, Market Weighton, Stamford Bridge and Pocklington connecting to the York to Scarborough Line at Haxby, on a double track line with a frequency of 2 trains per hour, with intermediate stations only at Market Weighton, Pocklington and Stamford Bridge.

[72] In June 2020, the East Riding of Yorkshire Council submitted a request for funding to cover a feasibility study which would investigate reopening the line.