Goathland railway station


Goathland railway station is a station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and serves the village of Goathland in the North York Moors National Park, North Yorkshire, England. It is famous for appearing as Aidensfield station in the television series Heartbeat, as the Hogwarts Express stop at Hogsmeade in the Harry Potter films, as Mannerton in the TV series All Creatures Great and Small, and in the end of the video of "Holding Back the Years", a Simply Red song released in 1985. Holiday accommodation is available in the form of a camping coach.

History

This station is on the deviation line opened by the North Eastern Railway in 1865 to avoid the cable-worked Beck Hole Incline, which was part of the original 1836 Whitby and Pickering Railway route.
The original Goathland station was located at the head of the incline, where there are still some Y&NM cottages, together with a single W&P one.
The station buildings were to the design of the NER's architect Thomas Prosser and were very similar to those being built concurrently on the Castleton to Grosmont section of the Esk Valley Line at Danby, Lealholm, Glaisdale and Egton. The collection of buildings is very little altered since they were built – the last recorded change was in 1908. A tributary of the River Esk flows close by the station.
Deemed to be uneconomic, the line was closed to passenger traffic in 1965, and freight traffic a year later, as part of the Beeching cuts, before reopening in 1973 as part of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.
Hornby modelled Goathland as part of the Skaledale Junction series, which included the footbridge, waiting room and Hogwarts Express.
The station and its environs also featured in the film Keeping Mum.