IN RESPONSE to your article of August 12, I offer the following memories of my train travel in Ryedale.

During my school days I travelled with my family to visit my great aunt at Gilling. We nearly always travelled by train. The train of four coaches, mainly of old North Eastern Railway origin, some with clerestory roofs, was usually hauled by a class D20 or D49 engine.

We would stop at Beningbrough, Tollerton, Alne, Raskelf, leaving the main line at Bishophouse Junction, although sometimes we stopped there until the line was clear to take the curve to Sunbeck Junction.

Stops were rare at Husthwaite Gate and the next stop would be Coxwold, where the line opened out to double track.

During the war some direct services were suspended and we would have to catch a main line service to Alne.

There were a few minutes on some days when Gilling station would spring to life with the arrival of the pick-up goods train which would marshal a few wagons and vans around.

The last train travelled on January 31, 1953, but three years earlier I had made the point of travelling through to Pickering and at about the same time travelled on the push-pull train from Pickering to Seamer and Scarborough. Malton to Driffield was a lovely trip through the Wolds. We occasionally went to Whitby. The only line I didn’t ride on was Gilling to Malton.

David Thomas, Marsh Lane, Bolton Percy