HARRY Potter would have loved it. An entire, 84-tonne iron and steel railway bridge being lifted, removed and replaced in - well, not quite the whisk of a wizard’s wand. But pretty quickly, nevertheless.

The railway bridge in question is the 112-year-old iron and steel bridge which carries the North Yorkshire Moors Railway across Eller Beck into Goathland Station. It is perhaps better known to millions of young film fans as the iconic railway track across which the Hogwarts Express thundered as it approached Hogsmeade Station.

The railway line closed after Christmas. And by the middle of January the old bridge - one of 32 on the full, 24-mile length of the railway - had gone.

Since then, engineers have been fighting against the elements to install a new bridge designed and built by Darlington-based Cleveland Bridge UK. The aim? To have it all finished and the line re-opened by April 6, in time for Easter.

Actually, despite Storms Ciara and Dennis and plenty of other heavy rain, the weather up on the Moors hasn’t been too bad, admits Andrew Scott, vice-chair of the North York Moors Historical Railway Trust. There was even some sunshine (just look at the photos). And thankfully, most of the heavy engineering work was done before the worst of the rains arrived.

The bridge was, in fact, built at the Cleveland Bridge factory in Darlington. It was first assembled, then taken apart again and moved in six loads by road to a freight depot in Middlesbrough. From there it was transferred to a special freight train, which brought it to Goathland - the final stages of the journey, appropriately, being along the North Yorkshire Moors Railway itself.

Since January, engineers have been reassembling it at the crossing over Eller Beck. By this week, the iron and steel skeleton was all in place, and engineers were concreting between the girders. Between now and April 6, they will then be re-laying up to 200 metres of railway track that had to be lifted while the bridge was replaced, as well as signalling cables and other infrastructure.

And then, says Mr Scott, you’ll hardly be able to tell the bridge was ever replaced. “It has been designed so that it doesn’t really look different,” he said.

It did need replacing, however. Some of the 32 bridges along the length of the heritage railway are made of stone. “They will last forever,” Mr Scott said. But others are made from iron and steel. “They only last for 120 years or so.”

The Goathland bridge - plus two other, smaller iron bridges south of Goathland station which will be replaced next year - had reached the end of their working lives. “We must replace all three if the line is to continue to operate,” concluded a report on the bridges.

The bridge replacements are just part of a huge, five-year, £10 million project - codenamed ‘Yorkshire’s Magnificent Journey’ - to safeguard the future of the 180-year-old North Yorkshire Moors Railway, which runs along 24 miles of steep inclines, remote landscapes and breathtaking vistas from Pickering across the moors to Whitby.

Originally opened in 1832 (as the Pickering and Whitby Railway) to try to halt the gradual decline of the port of Whitby, the railway has, since the late 1960s, operated as a ‘heritage’ line.

It now carries more than 300,000 visitors every year - and has featured on television and in film, most notably Harry Potter.

The Yorkshire’s Magnificent Journey project - funded with the help of a £4.4 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund as well as £1.75 million of EU money channelled through DEFRA’s Rural Payments Agency and a further sizeable contribution from the region’s Local enterprise Partnership - was launched last summer.

Over the next four years, in addition to replacing the three bridges, the plan is to build the line’s first-ever carriage depot at Pickering, so that its rolling stock can be garaged out of the rain and snow when not in use. A former village school at Stape, high up on the North York Moors, has also been bought and will be converted into an ‘outward bound’ centre for North Yorkshire Moors Railway volunteers.

The project will also see improved access (including for disabled people); an education centre in a converted railway carriage at Goathland; a new line-side conservation programme; and an apprenticeship scheme.

“These are exciting times,” said John Bailey, the chairman of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. “This is the result of two years careful planning (and is) the most ambitious project we’ve ever undertaken.”

Harry Potter would surely agree...

Thanks to various grants, most of the money needed to deliver the project has been secured. However, the railway trust still needs to raise some money to complete the project over the next four years. To find out more or to donate, visit nymr.co.uk/YMJ

History of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway...

WHAT is now the North Yorkshire Moors Railway began life almost 180 years ago as the Whitby and Pickering Railway. The hope was that it would halt the decline of Whitby as an important whaling and shipbuilding port. “It was felt that opening up better links with the interior of the country would help to regenerate both town and port,” says an article on the history of the railway on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway website.

The railway was absorbed into the York and North Midland railway in 1845, into the North Eastern Railway in 1854 and then the London and North Eastern Railway in 1948. It was part of British Rail’s network between 1948 and 1965 before closing following the Beeching report.

Railway enthusiasts soon began talking about opening it as a heritage line, and the first meeting of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway Preservation Society was held on November 18, 1967, in Goathland village hall.

  • Other significant dates since include:
  • February 2, 1969: First rail journey from Pickering to Grosmont.
  • March 28, 1970: First North Yorkshire Moors Railway Member’s Day passenger trains.
  • July 23,1971: First steam passenger train, from Grosmont to Pickering.
  • December 31 1971: North York Moors Historical Railway Trust incorporated as a successor to the Preservation Society.
  • February 14, 1972: Registered as a Charity.
  • May 1, 1973: The North Yorkshire Moors Railway officially opened by the Duchess of Kent officially opened the NYMR.
  • May 24, 1975: Public services extended into Pickering Station.
  • October 11, 1987: First through train from Whitby to Pickering.
  • September 17, 2005: Extension of operations to Whitby and the Esk Valley Line approved.
  • April 3, 2007: Start of passenger operation to Whitby.
  • August 2008: First Junior Volunteers Week.
  • October 22, 2010: Official opening of the Visitor Centre on Platform 2 of Pickering Station.
  • August 15, 2014: Second platform at Whitby opened.
  • 2016: Flying Scotsman returns.