The Yorkshireman

Join us for a main line steam run from London Euston station to York. The City of York is world famous for its variety of visitor attractions and home to the National Railway Museum. We travel north via the WCML and the Midland Main Line stopping at stations to pick up further passengers. Our train will be hauled between London and York by LMS Black 5 No. 44871.

‘The Yorkshireman’ will leave London Euston in the morning steam hauled by our steam locomotive. Initially on departure we shall hear our locomotive working hard on the climb up Camden Bank. We stop to pick up further passengers at Watford Junction. We continue through Watford Tunnel into rural Hertfordshire and leave the West Coast Main Line (WCML) at Bletchley, where further passengers will join us. We now take the Marston Vale line, formerly part of a longer route from Oxford to Cambridge and known as the Varsity Line and head through Woburn Sands before joining the Midland Main Line at Bedford, where we stop again for passengers to join the train. It is rare for a steam hauled charter train to travel over this line through rural Bedfordshire.

We continue to Kettering, where we stop for further passengers, and then leave the Midland Main Line and take the former Midland Railway’s Nottingham direct line. We pass through Corby Station, opened in 2009 to replace the original which was closed in 1966. We climb to the impressive Harringworth Viaduct that crosses the river Welland, and it is the longest masonry viaduct in Britain. From the end of the viaduct there is a long, stiff climb up to Wing Tunnel and then it is downhill to Manton Junction, and through Rutland’s county town of Oakham.

We stop to pick up passengers at Melton Mowbray before we continue to Syston Junction and take the sharp right hand curve to join the Midland Main Line from Leicester. We pass through Loughborough and join the Erewash Valley Line at Trent Junction. After Chesterfield we take the ‘old road’ via Barrow Hill to Rotherham and continue through Conisbrough to Doncaster. Here we join the East Coast Main Line and can expect a fast run to York, where we are scheduled to arrive in the early afternoon.

York is well known for its Minster and city walls. The Snickelways, famous medieval alleys and narrow streets, and The Shambles, are well worth exploring. The National Railway Museum, the many shops and museums, ensure that there is something on offer for everybody.

Our train leaves York in the late afternoon and returns to London Euston diesel hauled. We stop at the same stations as on the outward journey, to set down passengers.

On Board Catering