The Whitby and Pickering Railway was built as the culmination of attempts to halt the gradual decline of the port of Whitby

Whitby

Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a combined maritime, mineral and tourist heritage, and is home to the ruins of Whitby Abbey where Caedmon, the...

 on the east coast of the United Kingdom. The basic industries of Whitby, whaling and shipbuilding, had been in decline for years and it was felt that opening up better links with the interior of the country would help to regenerate both town and port.

Until the turnpike

Turnpike trust

Turnpike trusts in the United Kingdom were bodies set up by individual Acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls for maintaining the principal highways in Britain from the 17th but especially during the 18th and 19th centuries...

 to Pickering

Pickering, North Yorkshire

Pickering is an ancient market town and civil parish in the Ryedale district of the county of North Yorkshire, England, on the border of the North York Moors National Park. It sits at the foot of the Moors, overlooking the Vale of Pickering to the south...

 was opened in 1759, Whitby was better connected to the rest of the country by sea than it was by land; even then the difficult climb over the high moors was still an obstacle.