Whitby Museum's current exhibition is Railway, Coast and Vale, which will be open until 21 September, 2008 in the Exhibition Gallery. The Exhibition has been specially curated for us by Professor Gordon Bell, who is an expert in nineteenth century watercolour painters, and it includes a number of works by H.B. Carter from Prof. Bell's own collection. The exhibition was inspired by the opening of the Whitby to Pickering Railway in 1836, at the beginning of the railway age; the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in 1825 and the Liverpool to Manchester in 1830. Our railway was horse-drawn; George Hudson later bought it up and converted it to steam. George Stephenson was employed to engineer it, and he was helped by his apprentice Fred Swanwick and George Dodgson, then aged 22, an assistant surveyor whose later career as an artist forms part of the exhibition. One of the most interesting exhibits is Fred Swanwick's drawings for the crossing of Fen Bog; the line was carried across the bog on a layer of wicker hurdles. George Weatherill was book-keeper on the railway and he, too, famously made a successful career as an artist. One of the leading proponents of the railway project was the solicitor Henry Belcher, whose portrait has been restored specially for the exhibition. Professor Bell has written a fascinating account of the Whitby - Pickering Railway, which is on sale at the Museum.

Henry Belcher by George Weatherill & Prof. Gordon Bell (left) with Hugh Dodgson OBE who opened the exhibition