Heartbeat & Steam

I thought this would be a good opportunity to post, not having done so for some time!

As a birthday treat for this year Dee took me up to the North Yorkshire Moors for a nostalgic look back at the sixties.
For those who know the popular TV series Heartbeat, Goathland is the real name of the village where the series is filmed. We stayed in an excellent B&B which was actually used as the doctors surgery in the early series.
What was a bonus for me also was the LNER Festival 2008 taking place on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway over the same weekend. This was also the first ever line-up of all 3 working LNER -built, Gresley designed A4 Pacific's in preservation, Bittern, Sir Nigel Gresley and Union of South Africa. Among the other highlights was the unique Green Arrow in what is expected to be it's last working gala for the foreseeable future, as the loco's boiler certificate will expire at the end of April.
A further bonus, being Harry Potter fans, is the fact that Goathland Station was also used as Hogwarts Station in the Harry Potter movies. Pictured above is me standing outside Berny Scripps garage. Below are some of the scenes over the weekend.
We spent all of Sunday with the other anoraks travelling on the various services terminating at Pickering, Whitby and Battersby. On our final journey of the day back from Pickering the snow had really hit hard and coming up the final embankment as we neared Goathland the old loco was really struggling. I have to say that snow falling heavily over the moors and the sounds and sites of a steam engine as we approached our destination was an incredible experience. The village was actually snowed in for a short while later in the evening.
Despite the appalling weather over the entire weekend, around 3 to 4 inches of snow we had a great time and once again I find myself congratulating Dee on another one of her brilliant ideas!