The Footplate Ride - Part 1

Those of you who know me will realise that for my birthday my friends got together and bought me an extremely generous present; a footplate ride on a steam engine between Pickering and Grosmont on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Every little boy’s dream certainly mine. Well initially it took some organising but Thursday 2 October dawned bright and the arrangements were confirmed with the railway. What could go wrong?

We arrived at the magnificently restored Pickering station to the not encouraging welcome of “we have been trying to contact you”. Apparently the steam engine that had been booked to pull my train had broken down and was to be replaced by a diesel. So I had two options, to rebook or take the diesel trip and take a ride on a steam engine at a later date. Well it seemed a no brainer to me so I opted for the latter, a very good decision as it turned out. 

 So here I am sat on Pickering station waiting for the train to arrive, some 35 minutes late, I guess because of the replacement motive power. What was evident on a Thursday in the autumn was the numbers of people using the railway; many of who were taking advantage of the newly extended service to Whitby to have a some of the best fish & chips in England. I guess this is one an un-lauded example of the big society, what is fundamentally a volunteer run enterprise is generating a huge amount of economic benefit to a rural area of North Yorkshire. It would be interesting to know the impact on the local economy.

Well I climbed aboard a class 37 diesel hauling six carriages, and the first thing that struck me was how crude it was, just big mid-twentieth century engineering. It also appeared to relatively simple to drive but a nightmare to maintain, as well as a driver there was a fitter on board “in case anything goes wrong”. Throughout the journey he bemoaned what a lot of maintenance these machines needed. Given the crudeness of the cab design I shudder to think what these diesels must be like to drive on a cold winters day.

 The view from the cab was spectacular as can be seen from the picture, and it was interesting to see the railway from a different perspective. The journey was also notable for the amount of volunteers needed to keep the railway running. Everybody I met apart from the diesel fitter was a volunteer, either working during his or her holidays or giving up some time every week to working on the railways. Now I know people do this for the love and interest, but I found this remarkable and it gave me food for thought.

Well after a lovely pork pie lunch at Grosmont it was time for the return trip, and time for big surprise…