THE North Eastern Railway Association has just published a new book about the North Yorkshire & Cleveland Railway.

This branchline veered off the Northallerton to Yarm railway at the village of Picton – or Pickton as it was in the 1850s when the line opened – and it ran along the foot of the Cleveland Hills, calling at the stations of Trenholme Bar, Potto, Sexhow, Stokesley, Ingleby and Battersby before heading down the Esk Valley through Kildale, Commondale, Castleton, Danby, Lealholm, Glaisdale, Egton and Grosmont where it picked up a line into Whitby.

It was very much a minerals railway, and the book also covers the Ayton and Rosedale branches that ran off it.

Although this is very much a railway book – unsurprising, as it is published by the North Eastern Railway Association – there is loads that will appeal to a wider audience.

It is superbly illustrated, the 100 or so photographs and postcards brought to life by the high quality paper, and there are plenty of fascinating stories.

For example, in 1902, the Hull Daily Mail reported: “The stationmaster at Sexhow was crossing the line when he was caught by the locomotive and train of the 2.10pm from Picton and literally cut to pieces. Deceased’s name was Henry Eyles. He was rather deaf.”

North Yorkshire & Cleveland Railway by Peter J Maynard is available for £12.95 from the Guisborough Book Shop, the Grosmont Bookshop or by emailing sales@ner.org.uk, and it is post-free from NERA, 31, Moreton Avenue, Stretford, Manchester M32 8BP.

CAR SPOTTERS are always vigilant, no matter where they are. A couple of weeks ago, Looking Back featured the cars parked by the River Tees in the summer of 1962 – there were Standard Vanguards, Jowett Javelins, Hillman Minxes, Singer Gazelles, Ford Zephyrs...

The correct spelling of these exotic vehicles' names impressed Ken Walsh in Tunstall, who sent in this picture of a car he came across a few years ago in Havana. Cubans clearly have trouble differentiating between pesky people and furry, semi-aquatic animals.

ONE of the many respondents to the Neasham photograph was John Calvert in Hutton Rudby. "I worked at Neasham in the 1960s on the 36 inch gas line which crosses the river west of the village. It was a trunk main from Bacton, in Norfolk, carrying the first North Sea gas that came ashore."