North Yorkshire Moors Railway
Whitby Station Station Square Whitby YO21 1YN
The steam-train ride through the heart of the North York Moors is a fantastic family day out. Services are most frequent between the small market town of Pickering and the halt at Grosmont (including a stop at Goathland station, which you'll recognise from TV's Heartbeat series and from the Harry Potter films), but there are through-services three times a day right into Whitby itself. It's actually one of the most historic lines in the world, with the original route surveyed and built by railway pioneer George Stephenson. Services operated for 150 years until closure in 1965, and it took a determined band of volunteers to restore the rolling stock and re-open the line in 1973. Since then the railway has gone from strength to strength – it's billed as the most popular heritage railway in the world – and there's certainly a real thrill in a journey in the wood-panelled carriages through spectacular moorland.
