Yorkshire's Magnificent JourneyYORKSHIRE'S MAGNIFICENT JOURNEYDelivering our £10 million future vision Yorkshire's Magnificent Journey is our £10 million project to ensure that future generations can continue to enjoy our 180 year old railway for decades to come. Over the past 5 years we’ve been busy delivering 7 unique initiatives. The project concludes in 2024 and you can find out more below about what we’ve already achieved and what’s still to come. Bridge Renewals We’ve replaced three crucial bridges along our railway to ensure that we can keep the trains running well into the future. The new bridges have replaced ones that were over 150 years old and starting to show their age. Find Out More Fuss Free Access We’ve made improvements to help ensure that our site is as accessible as possible for all to enjoy and feel included. This includes new specially adapted accessible carriages, enhanced signage and accessible maps. Find Out More Carriage Stable We have built a new £4 million carriage stable at Pickering to provide better care for our historic carriages. The new facility provides covered storage for up to 40 carriages and is making our work to care for and maintain the collection much easier. Find Out More Goathland Learning & Interpretation We are busy developing our learning programmes and have launched a fresh new programme of activities to engage young people with the railway. We have transformed the former pigeon van at Goathland into a new learning coach and have launched a new app. Find Out More Volunteer Development We have invested in volunteering including creating new volunteer opportunities across our departments and providing training and support to help volunteer development. We have also created the Outstation at Stape - a residential centre providing high quality volunteer accommodation. Find Out More Apprentices Our new apprenticeship scheme is helping young people gain the skills they need for a future in heritage railways. Our apprentices are working alongside our staff in engineering and lineside conservation. Find Out More Lineside Conservation Our lineside conservation project is helping to care for the land either side of our railway tracks. Our conservation work includes habitat surveys, practical conservation tasks and the creation of educational resources to help our visitors understand more about wildlife and conservation. Find Out More Sign Up for Fundraising News YMJ Home News Project 3: Caring for our Historic Carriages Our new £4 million carriage stable at Pickering is enabling us to better care for our heritage carriages and allow routine servicing, safety inspections and cleaning to be undertaken under cover for the first time. This will make life easier for our staff and volunteers who work on them. The new carriage shed can accommodate up to 40 of our heritage carriages and features five tracks with a cantilevered roof. The facility is essential to ensure that our historic carriages will endure for future generations to enjoy. It will also ensure the safety of our vehicles, which had previously been subject to vandalism when stored in the open. You can watch a timelapse video of the carriage stable being built here. The stats 4,500 square metres of building 5 roads, each capable of housing between 7 and 8 typical carriages Double sided platforms to enable easy access Full length pit for underside access to trains Volunteer/staff mess room Comprehensive CCTV and Fire Alarm System Why the carriage stable is so important On 23 July 2017 we discovered that the LNER teak carriage set had been trashed by a gang of youths who had broken in at Pickering. Lights and light fittings were smashed, fire extinguishers set off, chairs used as battering rams, upholstery spoiled and windows smashed. The incident received international news coverage and a phenomenal response from the public with £50,000 being donated in just a week but it highlighted the urgent need to store our carriage fleet under cover with enhanced security surveillance. The carriage shed will do more than prevent against vandalism. Our fleet is essential to keeping the railway moving but many of our vehicles are over 60 years old. Stock kept out in the open is exposed to everything the Yorkshire climate can throw against it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Rot and corrosion are particular issues for our Mk1 carriages, which are the last of the steam-era rolling stock. There are no new Mk1s to replace them and later coaches are just not compatible with steam locomotives. An ongoing programme of maintenance and repair is vital to keep them running, which is much easier done under cover. The work we do will also last much longer if the carriages are stored under cover. Pickering Carriage Stable Site Plan The carriage stable is absolutely crucial for an operating railway and ensuring that future generations can enjoy our historic vehicles. The building stands in a designated flood plain and is designed to be flood resilient. The adjacent green area incorporates flood water storage capacity to help mitigate flood risk to Pickering. We will be planting it with a wildflower mix and Alder Buckthorn to attract wildlife and insects as part of our lineside conservation work. Your donation makes a vital difference to help our railway survive for future generations. Donate Manage Cookie Preferences