Heritage route
Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway
Embsay → Bolton Abbey · England
Four miles of the Midland’s Skipton–Ilkley line, closed in 1965 and reopened by volunteers in 1981, with trains back into Bolton Abbey station, for the priory estate, since 1997.
- Distance
- 7 km
- Fastest time
- ≈ 20 min
- Average speed
- 21 km/h
- Top speed
- 40 km/h

Embsay station opened in October 1888 on the Midland Railway’s line from Skipton to Ilkley, which British Railways closed in March 1965. A preservation society leased the Embsay buildings in 1971, ran its first trains in 1979 and reopened the station in 1981, then pushed east to Holywell and Stoneacre Loop and finally back into Bolton Abbey in 1997. It carries around 100,000 passenger journeys a year over four miles on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.
Stations
- 1 kmEmbsay
- 3 kmHolywell Halt
- 6 kmBolton Abbey
The stations OpenStreetMap maps along this line, in order along the line as drawn here, with the distance along it. Not every train stops at every station.
Along the way
- Embsay station
- Draughton
- Holywell Halt
- Stoneacre Loop
- Bolton Abbey, for the priory
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 4254156: the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 5 m from it
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Questions and answers
How long is the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway?
The Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway runs 7 km from Embsay to Bolton Abbey.
How long does the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway take?
The fastest scheduled journey is ≈ 20 min for the 7 km. That is an average of 21 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 40 km/h.
Who runs the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway?
Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway, with Industrial & heritage steam.
How old is the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway?
The line has been in service since 1981. That is the year the atlas dates it from: for a modern brand running over an older railway, it is the railway's date, not the brand's.
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