York to Middlesbrough 

As a lifelong train enthusiast, youtube and people like yourself gives me a perspective that I never thought I would get to see.

This will be my first trip this year. Happy 2020 to Don and everyone else.

As an 83 year old ex=railwayman with the usual health problems, my touring days are over, so it is good to "get out and about" with your videos - Thanks a lot, Don, and a Happy New Year to you - keep up the good work!

Just brilliant Don. The lack of commentary leaving us to read the on screen info instead is good. You and your videos have given rail enthusiasts access to a wealth of fascinating footage. Keep up the good work.

Thanks again for another great video. Had to watch it twice though, first time I was laid in bed and all I remembered was leaving York and waking up in Middlesbrough. Second viewing I did the whole trip and thoroughly enjoyed it along with the obligatory Jammy Dodgers and several pots of tea. Thanks again Don to you and your colleagues for making these trips so informative and enjoyable.

Loving all these vids as i slowly go through them. When i was 16 i travelled all over the country by train so this is great to see.

Lovely upload , i remember doing Tees Yard as a teenager spotting in the late 70's ,up to 15-20 , 08 shunters busying themselves in the yards and line after line of freight powered by everything from 20's to 56's good times

Thanks Don for another brilliant video. Right past my house just north of York!

Excellent. Thank you both.

I love how your videos are concentrating on the less glamorous routes, the ones that apparently have never been recorded before. Tees Yard still looks huge, but rather dilapidated sadly. A big thanks to Aron. Oh and Happy 2020 to you Don, and everyone else. Now if we can just get the rain we need down-under we might be shot of all these damn fires!

Thanks for posting this one Don. A great run along the “motorway” that is the ECML, and the cut across to Middlesbrough. That viaduct at Yarm is magnificent - certainly a credit to its engineers and builders. Appreciate the snippets about closed stations and junctions too.

Fantastic in cab video Don! Very much appreciate all you do. Looking forward to the 802 cab ride idc. Regards.

Splendid. Thank you.

Really enjoyed this my brother and I travel this route several times a year to watch the steam specials come up from Kings Cross into York......Keep up the good work.

Brilliant ! Thank you, sir.

This is a treat for rail fans... Keep sharing Thanks for taking us the trip

Many thanks Don & Aron, happy new year to you both & everyone else on here 🥂🥂🥂🥂

Really enjoyed this . Thanks Don

Thank you yet again. The first of many I hope! Have a very happy 2020 you and your family.

Another triumph Don. Many thanks to you and Aron. Have a great 2020, and keep them coming.....please!

Great stuff! I've criss-crossed this line (between York & Brompton & the various Wiskes) on my bicycle many, many times - but today I was following your video from my indoor bike.! Great to see it from the railway perspective. Thanks for all the interesting information, too, as ever with your fabulous videos. I must look out for that 1930s signal box next time I'm up that way!

Enjoy your videos, thank you for sharing them. The information you put is also great to read. Thanks again

Another wonderful video Don, from my own area too! Loved the additional map work too. Thank you so much

Thank you Mr Coffey love the journeys very informative.

Another superb video. Thanks Don and Aron. Keep 'em coming please.

Many thanks Don. Clearly a lot of work went into this and it shows in the result. A stunning piece of work.

Thanks once again, Don, and a Happy New Year. The disused stations comments and photos were a bonus! Nice to see one of Dr Ben's pictures being used - the man is a legend.

Brilliant, love it, another history lesson and pointing interesting sightseeing things out to us! Like the other videos, I will watch 2 or 3 times as I fine very relaxing. Thanks Don you are brilliant bloke.

Very many thanks Don for another great cab ride and for all your hard work in putting these videos together. Always fascinating and informative.

As usual, a professional quality, informative video; particularly interesting to me as the north east is one of the few areas of the country I'm unfamiliar with. Many thanks. Thanks too to TPE for their co-operation and particularly to Aron for allowing us to share his domain!

Very good video for the beginning of the year, thank You for sharing this video!

Interesting, informative and very well produced as usual. I really appreciate the time and effort you put in. Many thanks.

Thank you, Don. This is well up to your usual heights. I love the way you manage to get so many historical details in - warning us in advance about something, showing it on the map and on satellite imagery. And the commentary on railway practice - driving techniques, signalling etc. is so informative. Excellent!

well done Don. So informative and educationa.. I'm 82 years and never tire of riding with you and reading the script. not that i remember it all. thanks againn. Keith

Superb video (as usual!) Don. Many thanks to you and Aron.

Thank you for an enjoyable video over part of a line I have never travelled once I left the ECML. I found the historical comments very helpful.

These videos are so fantastic. It gives one an insight to what it’s like to be a driver. Really interesting and I’m learning all the time...! Thank you..

Cheers Don, a cracking video you said to watch-out for & very happy i did watch!

I have discovered your videos,and how wonderful they are! The information you insert along the way is extremely useful. This is enabling me to see parts of the country I would only just imagine otherwise. Living in Bude in Cornwall,you can just guess how much we miss the old railway which ran from here to Holsworthy and Halwill Junction,branching off to Bideford and Barnstaple one way,and Padstow the other. Then on to Exeter St.Davids. We never thought that one day it would all be gone.

Another excellent thank you for sharing look forward to next one

I love the content of every video, all the best for the New Year to all involved.

Always a pleasure to ride along with you, Mr. Coffey. Happy New Year from Wisconsin!

Another superb video. Beautiful scenery. Happy new year Don to you and the family. A sincere thanks for your kindness in posting sure fantastic video's. And big thanks to our driver Aron

A nice trip, that. Many thanks to Aron and I'm looking forward to the Newcastle run. Hope you had a good Christmas, Don and a very happy 2020 to you. 👍🏼

great video I 'm from Teesside and have travelled this route a few times but didn't know about the lost stations between Northallerton and Yarm great historical facts.... Thanks Don and Aron a great journey

Thank you Don for sharing this. I have travelled this route many times as a passenger so was intersting to see it from the driver perspective. I have stood on the footbridge at Thirsk to video the trains thundering through at 125mph - quite something!

Thank you Mr Coffey you have made an old man very happy!! Loved this, had a tear in my eye when you passed the site of Thornaby depot as that's where I passed out for driving 30 years ago and you never even mentioned it used to be there!!! Nice to see Driver Moran ( an ex trainee of mine) get a mention but will need to give him a bit of a history lesson about much of the route so much he hasn't told you. As for Yarm viaduct it was a pleasure to let 2x37s let rip coming off it!!

Missed Premiere, but still enjoyed with the full information on the trip. I do thank you good work Coffey.

Brilliant as ever! Thanks Mr.Coffey

Great video Don, thanks for uploading. Before I became a signalman I worked as a freight guard at Tees Yard and knew this route very well - I was keen to see how it looked today, sadly it's a shadow of it's former self. Anyway a few bits of trivia about the route that may be of interest :- When learning the ECML southbound we were taught the acronym 'NOTSPRATS' to remember the former station locations in order - Northallerton, Otterington, Thirsk, Sessay, Pilmoor, Raskelf, Alne, Tollerton and Skelton. At Pilmoor where the line used to have a junction to Malton (somewhere about 11.30 in your video) there used to be an old semaphore gantry and ground frame in the middle of nowhere (it was virtually in a field), before modern day eyesight testing was adopted it was used to test drivers who had suspected eye problems. Drivers would be taken by a traction inspector and required to state the semaphore signal aspects at the other end of a field whilst the inspector operated them from the frame. Drivers that failed the test and taken off driving duties were said to have been 'sent to Pilmoor.' The test signals can be seen partway down this page :- www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85326-dave-fs-photos-ongoing-more-added-each-day/page/72/ As for Tees Yard, when built (I think it opened in 1962?) it was the largest marshalling yard in the country and was capable of handling 7500 wagons in 24hrs via 2 mechanised hump yards. To some extent the large hump yards like Tees, Tinsley, Kingmoor, Healey Mills etc were built too late as single wagon traffic was already in decline by the 60's so the yards rarely dealt with the volume of traffic they could theoretically handle. By the late 70's longer wheelbase 4 axle rolling stock was becoming more common and the humps could no longer cater for that traffic. Both up and down humps lasted till about 1982 when the up hump closed and the down hump closed perhaps about 5 years later. Temporarily in the mid 80's the up yard became very busy for a couple of years as all former hump traffic was then shunted on the flat using the yard pilots and at the time the railway was trying to go back to single wagon traffic with the short lived 'Speedlink' programme - needless to say it didn't last long and the yard now is very small by comparison. On the subject of the humps because of the nature of the hump profile class 40 locos (with 8 axles) weren't allowed over the hump as they would get stuck, signalmen were supposed to be advised not to route a class 40 onto the hump but we are all human and it did occasionally happen. All that was needed then was for the driver and guard to overlook it and bingo the engine is stuck blocking everything behind it ;-) Regarding Bowesfield signal box it had a long lever frame split in 2 halves and housed 130 levers, in it's heyday it was worked by 2 signalmen and a book lad. It used to be quad track infront of the box and as far as Thornaby where the yard started. It was complex junction at one time. The original Stockton Station was a terminus at the end of a very short branch that diverged from the present line opposite Bowesfield box - the original booking hall is still there but the line and everything else is long gone. I'm familiar with a lot of the railway in this area and its history so if there is anything you (or anyone else) would like to know drop me a line here and I'll do my best to answer :-)

Another great vid, many thanks Don & Aron...Happy New Year !

Thanks Don another great journey. Looking forward to the upcoming Newcastle trip. I moved to Australia as a kid, and came from Chester-le-Street, so will keep my eye out for the blast through there! Thanks again

I remember travelling between Leeds and Middlesbrough as a student in the early 70's. Rickety old DMU from Middlesbrough to Darlo. A decent rain to York than another rickety DMU across to Leeds. I had never used Yarm station until a few years ago because it had long been closed, nowadays there is a direct service from Manchester to Teesside on modern, comfortable rolling stock. That is the problem with progress, it gets in the way of nostalgia.

The historical info is a great bonus,thank you from Joe

Great informative video , I really appreciate the info along the bottom of the video 👍🇨🇦🇨🇦

And 2020 continues where 2019 left off, with another superb video from the maestro of cab footage!! Thanks Don, really enjoyed this. Happy New Year to you and yours. Cheers, Bob

As usual, fully informative - especially the Stockton part of the Stephenson route. Well into the 70s the track layouts in this area were huge and Thornaby depot was a "must" for all spotters in the 1960s. Economic forces hammered Teeside from the late 70s onward, less Mrs Thatcher's government - more to re-trenching by ICI. From being a high wage economy the decline in the 80s was precipitous. It will come back, not least free port status for the Tees. Best wishes to you Don - and Arron - plus all the fellow travellers on this site.

Great videos. The inset photos of points of interest are great.

Another excellent quality and informative video don. Thank you.

Thanks for the excellent video. I was in Northallerton just last week and on leaving the down train couldn't work out what the line was on the left hand side crossing the road. I now know it's the station avoiding line! Thanks again.

Another superb video, Don and the history comments are what makes it special. Been on that line a few times but didn't appreciate the beauty of the viaduct over Yarm.

Another great video Don,here I am sat watching your video with emphysema that the dear old steam engines left me with.I send you and your family all the very best for 2020.Kind Regards.

Yet another high quality production - as I'm sure we all expected. As well as insights into the disciplines required in driving on the national network, the rolling captions provide just enough information to trigger further research into the historic background of the route. Well done sir!

Another masterpiece Don. You are building an extraordinary reference library of British Railways today. They could be the next generation's Pathe collection. Thank you for your hard work (and thanks to your colleague's for their support.)

I really love your videos. And specially the text captions you display with rich information about almost everything we can see from the driver's eyes. As a rail enthusiast and in real life train driver in Spain I appreciate your content and explanations as well. Lovely trips on a lovely landscape and a really curious rail system compared to the Spanish one. Keep these videos coming. We appreciate them a lot.

Great video again Don, very enjoyable. 🙂

Thanks Aron and Don for letting us share your experience as a driver. The information and the on screen shots are so interesting. What an impressive viaduct, and experience to travel on part of the Stockton to Darlington railway. Thank you George! The ding must be reassuring to hear knowing the the signal ahead is green. I look forward to future rides with you. Thanks again.

Excellent video. I loved all the information and historic perspective. Never thought I would ride the Stockton to Darlington, even just a part of it. Also, total respect to you drivers for the job you do. The level of concentration must be exhausting at times. Cheers.

Hi Don ... A very happy New Year to you, yours and your collaborators at TPE and elsewhere. Thank you for yet another of your excellent, well informed and well presented, pleasurable journeys. I just have the feeling there is so much detail here I'm going to have to "digest" this several times over to better appreciate the finer details!! A Butler

Middlesborough is where my da was born, so makes the trip extra special.

first may I wish you and your family a happy new year and thank you for another first class informative cab ride A

Thank you for making and sharing. Always informative. One learns a lot. Happy new 2020 wishes from Sweden.

Thanks don & aron for a wonderful journey cheer's bob.

That was excellent Don ! And Aron too !! :):) Happy New Year to you Don and your family !!! :):):) Thank you for sharing !!! :):):)

Another fascinating, informative video. As ever, full marks Don!

Thanks, Superb video as always.

Awesome video. I grew up just outside of Yarm. Fantastic to come over the viaduct on either a TransPennine or Grand Central service.

great stuff thank you very much keep them coming

another great video don. I really like the information texts along the way, cheers

A superb start to 2020's videos, thanks Don and Happy New Year to you.

From half way around the world (New Zealand) a big thanks Don for posting these you tube entries, and a great thankyou to Aron for allowing us into his cab. You have both made me feel somewhat homesick (I am originally from Essex but I have spent forty of my fifty two years over here in NZ, the rest back home), and very envious at the same time...If I were to return home I'd be signing up for Driver training! All the very best Gentlemen, and please keep these coming!! Cheers, Dennis

My second time watching this another great road trip hope you will do more soon Merry Christmas and happy new year to you and family

Another really interesting one, this Don. Fantastic job again!

RU-vid gave me the time an hour early, so here I am, my research on Middlesbrough finished, lunch eaten, and thumbs twiddled. My New Year’s resolution already broken with this message. Happy New Year, Don and trainees.

Great work,thanks

Don once again a really enjoyable video, with top class information. All the very best for 2020.

Another good one Don.....like those early maps/photos you include....your comments about Stockton/Darlington brought back those History lessons of years gone by [speaking of me of course]..... thanks from Wn NZ

My boyfriend and I love to watch your videos before bed once in a while Don! We love to learn and hear the train noises that basically lull me to sleep. Always gonna be a fan!

Been offline for a while, so this is my first trip this year and I must say up to your usual standard, thanks Don and Aron. Might I also wish you, your family and everyone watching the very best for the New Year.

Cheers, Don! Will look forward to this later tonight! I know I'll enjoy it. You never let us down.... :o)

Hi, thanks for the video and posting it. My old stamping ground - the whole route. But no mention of Pilmoor Jc. the GNR cottages and the former lines coming in from Boroughbridge or Coxwold and the branch to Easingwold. Also, the Transporter Bridge at Haverton Hill, Middlesbrough - framed perfectly by the over bridge. I am homesick for North Yorkshire & Cleveland, so it was great to see again, thank you.

Great Vidio being a Yorkshireman its good to see the railways I know in a completely different way that I would only rarely see or got to rarely in my Day Rover days as a young lad. I watch all your vidios and find them fascinating keep them coming.

Very well done Don you have done it again, very informative and educational video. I do like to learn about our great country off ours. I hope you had a grand Christmas and the new year will take you far and wide up there in the northern parts on the UK.

Hi Don, no better start to the new year then a new railway journey, Happy new year,🤓

Thanks for another superb video, best wishes for 2020

always enjoyable and a pleasure to watch Happy New Year Don

Fascinating one again Don, especially liked the entrance to the station and the way the signals control it in fog, very clever and very safe. Nice to see the NE again.

Hello Don! I always have to mention how well you explain everything in the subtitles. Because I don't speak English very well, I have to think a little longer, but somehow it works. You really learn a lot here. Thank you from Hans from the Mühlviertel in Upper Austria.👍☺

Another Great Episode! Happy and Healthy 2020!

Happy New Year, Sir. Another excellent and informative video. Thank you.