Wensleydale Wondering

 14th. July 2021.           Wensleydale. Wondering 

Today’s adventure for the Lads would see them take a train journey to the far reaches of North Yorkshire, they were heading for the small town of  Bedale. From there they would experience a short trip on the Heritage Railway that connects with a couple of other nostalgic stations that exist in this particular location.

The passengers on this excursion will include John, Colin, Brian, Malcolm and Dave, each making their own way to Leeds in order to board the 9:14 train heading for Northallerton, from here they caught a No 73 bus  that would transport them to Bedale. The bus journey took about 25 minutes and during this time a friendly passenger would enlighten that Lads about the thrills and spills on their intended ride on this heritage rail journey, much to the delight of John. Upon their arrival at Bedale another bus passenger had overheard the conversation taking place and decided to help the Lads. His name was Bob , a truly delightful gentleman, he only happened to be a volunteer working for the Wensleydale Heritage Railway.








He went on to give us a more in-depth account of what to expect from this rather quaint journey and maybe how we should go about  experiencing what it had to offer. With his thoughts fresh in our minds we now climbed aboard the 11:30 train, unfortunately this was not the train we had been expecting, some previous accident had caused the so called Bubble Train to be taken off the line and taken away for repair work to be carried out. It had been replaced with the Pacer type carriages , pity. It didn’t spoil things for us too much. It was only a matter of about 10 minutes before we reached the Leeming Bar Station, this is where we left the train and there to greet us was the Station Master dressed in all his glory and about to offer the experience of visiting his partly renovated buildings  firstly though he introduced himself as Mr. Newton . Then gave us an insight into how this particular station operated back in the 1920’s, full of very interesting facts about its day to day running, so much so we then went on to experience these first hand with a guided tour of the parcel depot then the ticket office onto the Ladies Waiting room where we indulged in quite an in-depth conversation with a particular person, from here we finally ended up in the station masters accommodation and a lengthy chat with his role acting wife. Totally a great experience.











From here we boarded the next train heading further down the line to the station at Scruton, another delightful setting in wonderful countryside. From the station it was just a short walk into the village and take our table at the local pub, Coore Arms, for a well appreciated lunch time meal. The time now was just after 1:30 , about an hour was spent here at the village pub before we decided to take a walk back towards the railway station and then finally back to a bus stop that had been suggested to us. The next hour didn’t go to plan exactly, we called in at the station for a chat with one of the volunteers and left him far too early, because  we miscalculated the time it would take to reach the said bus stop and spent almost 45 minutes waiting there in the glare of the hot sunshine before our bus did finally arrive and transport us back to Northallerton in order to catch the 16:28 train heading back to Leeds and then our journeys home.

Upon reflection we all enjoyed this particular experience and are great full to all the people involved in this adventure, a big Thanks from the Lads to you All.


sorry about the wrong order of photos 

Cheers Lads 

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