Whitby Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway

The Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway (WRMU) was a railway line in North Yorkshire, England, built between 1871 - 1883, running from Loftus on the Yorkshire coast to the Esk at Whitby, and connecting Middlesbrough via previously built lines in Cleveland to Whitby.

The railway is also known as the Whitby-Loftus Line.

For much of its journey the line hugged the cliffs, and had a troubled build due to the proximity to the sea and poor quality of the construction on many of its original bridges and viaducts. The line was closed in May 1958, a short section to Boulby Potash Mine re-opened in the 1970s.

Whitby had been connected by Whitby and Pickering Railway since the 1830s. Loftus was connected to the rail system by the 1870s via an extension of the Cleveland Railway: both the Cleveland Railway and the Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway were constructed in the 1860s connecting Middlesbrough to Guisborough.

The extension of the line from Loftus to Whitby was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1866, with the majority of construction carried out under John Dickson between 1871 and 1873. Due to a lack of funds and problems with the contractor work was suspended on the route until the NER took up the lease in 1875. John Waddell won the contract, and the line was scheduled to open on 13 July 1881, but due to the extra work required to bring it up to standard, it was a further two and a half years before the line was opened on 3 December 1883. Many bridges were defective and piers out of vertical. The original tunnels were out of line so that when boring was done from either end they did not meet in the centre. Part of the proposed line was dangerously close to the cliff edge and was abandoned by the NER which took a route further inland through Sandsend and Kettleness tunnels.

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