Goathland Bank Top was a short lived, early,

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

Goathland Goathland is a village and civil parish in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the North Riding of Yorkshire, it is in the North York Moors national park due north of Pickering, off the A169 to Whitby. I ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

, England. The station at the top of the

Beckhole Incline Beckhole Incline was a steep, rope-worked gradient on the railway line between Whitby and Pickering, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England. Opened in May 1836 as part of the horse-worked Whitby & Pickering Railway, the line was operated by ...

(sometimes referred to as the Goathland Incline) was opened with the opening throughout of the

Whitby and Pickering Railway The Whitby and Pickering Railway (W&P) was built to halt the gradual decline of the port of Whitby on the east coast of England. Its basic industries—whaling and shipbuilding—had been in decline and it was believed that opening transport l ...

(W&P) on Thursday 26 May 1836. The station closed with the opening of the

NER NER may refer to: * New European Recordings, a record label * ISO 3166-1 three letter code for Niger * Named entity recognition, a text processing task that identifies certain words as belonging to one class or another * Northeast Regional, an Amt ...

's Deviation line (which bypassed the by then anachronistic cable worked incline) on 1 July 1865. Thus the station had a life of less than thirty years. A new Goathland station (initially called Goathland Mill to distinguish it from the earlier station) was opened on the deviation line.

Whitby and Pickering Railway (1836-45)

Little is known about what facilities the horse-worked W&P provided at Goathland, they did build an 'overseers cottage' at the head of the incline, that cottage survives, now known as 'Ash Tree Cottage', it is probably the only surviving inhabited W&P structure which is now a grade II listed building that passed into private ownership in 1913. The incline was built with a 1-in-15 gradient to the design of the W&P's Engineer

George Stephenson George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for ...

and was self-acting with the descending traffic hauling up the ascending traffic. The descending coach or wagons was given additional weight by means of a wheeled water butt, which was filled before descending, then drained at the bottom and returned to the top with the next ascending load. The machinery for working the inclined plane was obtained from

Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS HFRSE FRSA Doctor of Civil Law, DCL (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railway ...

at a cost of £135 14s 6d. The original rope for the incline manufactured by Mr. Henry Simpson was 1,500 yards long and 5.5 inches in circumference. The W&P built a stable 'at the top of Goathland Inclined Plane', the directors accepting a tender from a Mr. Langdale of £230. The York & North Midland Railway (Y&NM) replaced the water gravity system with a stationary steam engine in 1846.

What can be seen today

At a first glance the unattuned observer would hardly realise that there had been a railway, never mind a station on the site of Goathland's first station. However the presence of a 'Historic Rail Trail' following the original alignment gives away the one-time presence of a railway. In the adjacent image the worn track on the grass roughly follows the track alignment. In the distance can be seen the Y&NM terrace (with three distinctive chimney stacks), one (modern) house beyond that stands 'Ash Tree Cottage', the W&P's cottage at the head of the incline. The incline itself starts just out of sight, about where the path disappears.

References

* * * {{Railway stations in the Borough of Scarborough Disused railway stations in the Borough of Scarborough Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1836 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1865 Former York and North Midland Railway stations George Townsend Andrews railway stations