A Day With 44806 North Yorkshire Moors Railway 04/05/2024

Hello & Welcome to Harnetty Railways

In this video we return to our friends at The North Yorkshire Moors Railway at the start of the early May Bank Holiday Weekend.

The priority of this visit was to see back in revenue earning service after a 3 year overhaul at Grosmont MPD between 2020 & 2023 of Peter Best's Black 5 44806 complete with red smokebox number & shed code plates along with Lostock on her front buffer beam during her 80th Birthday year 80 years since she was out shopped from Derby works in 1944.

We start at Pickering station the southern terminus of the railway in the early morning.

The black 5's drawing power was very evident as she brings her stock in from the carriage shed to pick up her passengers to form the 1st train of the day.

We joined her train to Grosmont & with her going tender 1st we didn't bother.

At Grosmont she came off the train to get serviced at Grosmont sheds while her train went on with diesel traction to Whitby.

At Grosmont MPD this gave us the opportunity to have a look at her in great detail while she was getting serviced including seeing the procedure of a blowing down job in clearing out the standing water that was inside her the previous evening with clean water ready for her to work the 13:30pm departure from Grosmont.

We head back to the station to see her buffer up to the dining train which she was heating up the dining train while waiting for her next train & the loco to work the dining train to arrive.

With her train returning from Whitby she backed down onto her train ready for the 13:30pm departure to Pickering.

Prior to departure she encountered her brother the railway's tribal chief & head of the Black 5 table 5428 Eric Treacy arriving with the 12:00pm service from Pickering bound for Whitby facing north in order to even out the wear in the tires.

Soon it was time to go as we set off for Pickering.

This trip was actually a rerun of the ill fated on board filming from October 2014 behind 44806 in pouring rain damaged 1 of our earliest camcorders.

Now 10 years later with better equipment & 44806 putting a gd show as she climbs the 1 in 49 grade to Goathland.

Just before Pickering she stopped at Newbridge depot where she had a crew change before heading off to Pickering station.

During the time of our visit 44806 has yet to do her test runs to go onto the Esk Valley mainline into Whitby hopefully upon our return to the railway in late September we will have our red pen day of haulage behind 44806 on the mainline so something to look forward to during her 80th birthday year.

We end this video at Pickering were we started as we see 44806 run round to go tender 1st back to Grosmont.

Thanks for reading enjoy the film.

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