Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway

In the Yorkshire Dales, there are olde worlde trains, travelling between olde worlde stations. It’s lovely. The station at Bolton Abbey is incredibly quaint, with tea rooms, a shop and old suitcases stacked everywhere. They even have a fireplace in the ticket room to keep out the cold in winter.

We pitched up to take a train ride to Embsay and back (though I had a nasty bee sting incident in the car park – OUCH). The train we got wasn’t a full on steam train (though they do run one of those too – you have to check the timetable with an eagle eye if you want to get that one I think). Ours was a diesel train, but an old one, which was fun to explore.

The journey was beautiful; we slowly wound our way through the dales, surrounded by sheep and green rolling hills. It’s really spectacular scenery and travelling on these heritage railway lines is a great way to explore it.

We pulled in at Embsay station, which is rather quaint too, if a little bit musty smelling?! All good fun though, and we stocked up with tea, cake and a Thomas flag before starting our journey back to Bolton Abbey station.

We had a great afternoon, my only gripe is the price – adult tickets are £10 each, and children’s tickets (3yrs+) are £5. It’s really quite steep for what you get. There are plenty of special events running through the year (like a Halloween train ride, and a Santa special) so we may wait for one of those before investing again.

Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway is a volunteer-run organisation, and it’s great to support it to keep these old trains running.

Full timetables and info can be found on their website.