This railway runs through some of the most beautiful countryside the UK has to offer, it also boasts some picturesque stations.
However my last trip to it was very disappointing. My family and I got off the train at Pickering to go for lunch. On our return a heavy rain and hail storm struck us so we dashed for the first carriage open to us and started ti make our way with two young children and a push chair along the coaches when a very rude and arrogant railway volunteer in hi-vis orange clothing stopped us in our tracks (excuse the pun) You're not going in there
It turns out that you can't take pushchairs into some of the historic coaches for fear of damage ok that's fair enough but the manner in which he spoke to us was appalling. He then suggested to us that we disembark (in the rain) and take the pushchair to the guards van. We refused! Seconds later a man with two large wet dogs walked into the carriage followed by a photographer carrying a large tripod that clanged against the carriage walls - none of this made any difference to Jobsworth! His whole attitude was appaling and a number of other customers commented on his behaviour.
In the end he did offer to take the pushchair through the coach himself.
When I went to pick up the pushchair from the guards van later I discovered a young mother looking after her sleeping son. It turns out the same hi-vis volunteer had made her travel in there because she refused to wake her sleep son. What was so outrageous about this was that there were carriages in which you could take pushchairs!
Sadly it doesn't end there!
Later that day we tried to escape a second downpour by popping into the Cafe at Grosmont station. By this time my youngest niece was fast asleep in the pushchair. Yet the Cafe staff refused to let us in with the pushchair because of fire regulations... yet the Cafe was large, spacious and COMPLETELY EMPTY.
On the basis of this trip I really cannot recommend the railway to parents with pushchairs, not only was the cleanliness of the coaches (as others have pointed out) terrible it seems that a number of their staff/volounteers go out of their way to be unhelpful and rude