Harrogate’s 160th railway anniversary exhibition gets a return ticket thanks to public response

First launched in July, ‘Welcome to Harrogate Railways’ exhibition is packed with archive photographs, memorabilia, signage and, even, a model railway.Organised by the Harrogate Civic Society, with support from LNER, Northern, Network Rail and the Harrogate Model Railway Group, the display on the concourse tells the story of Harrogate station and the history of its surrounding railways since it first opened on August 1, 1862.

Such is the exhibition’s popularity, it has already been revived once.

Now it is to return again on the following dates:

November 5-6 and December 3-4 from 10am to 4pm.Keen railway historians will already be aware that Station Parade was not the site of Harrogate’s first actual railway.A branch line was opened in 1848 from Church Fenton which terminated at Brunswick Station, near to what became the Prince of Wales’ Mansions in Harrogate town centre.

In 1849 a new line was built from Leeds to Thirsk, with a station at Starbeck.

Station Parade is the result of a decision to link the two lines through central Harrogate with a new station in the centre of the town.

The exhibition is the brainchild of Harrogate Civic Society member and former teacher Terry Williams; the creator and administrator of the New Park Heritage Centre at Bilton, which includes another part of Harrogate’s railway history.