DELAYS on railways are nothing new and can afflict anyone. For the passenger, even more infuriating than the delay is when there is no information about how long the delay is likely to last. You just have to sit there, fuming…

We are grateful to Ian Mitchell for sending us this letter that a 21-year-old from Redcar, named Gertrude Bell, wrote to her stepmother, Florence, on April 22, 1890, when she was still fuming about the “absurd expedition” that she had undertaken the previous day on the North Eastern Railway of which her grandfather, Sir Isaac, was a director.

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Gertrude Bell, aged 41, in Iraq, 20 years after her train disaster

Gertrude, who was then a history student at Oxford University, and some young companions had caught the 10.21 train from Redcar for a day-trip to Egton, in the North York Moors, which required them to change at Eaglescliffe onto the Whitby train.

Unfortunately, at Eaglescliffe, “we found that there was an engine off the line at Yarm and we could not pass”, wrote Gertrude. “So we waited and waited and the day got cloudier and cloudier.

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“At last they took us to the outside of the tunnel near Yarm and there we all got out walked past the engine and found a train waiting for us. By that time it was pouring.

“We looked about us blankly; a porter came up and asked where we wanted to go – we didn't know, if it was going to rain we wanted to go back to Redcar (there were trains running about in all directions regardless of Bradshaw).

“Oh, said the porter, deceitfully, it wasn't going to be much. So we got into a train and went on to Picton.”

The Northern Echo: Eating Owt - The Station, Picton - the station in it's heyday.

Piction station, where Gertrude ended up

As anyone who has studied Bradshaw’s first railway timetable would know, Picton is just two miles south of Yarm. It was at a junction, where the line to Northallerton diverged from the line to Whitby.

“Here we were not surprised at being greeted by the cry which had met us at every station: ‘All change here’. We hopped out; it was pouring in torrents with thick grey clouds blotting out all the country.”

From her knowledge of Bradshaw’s, Gertrude knew that she could abandon the day out and catch the mid-day train from Whitby that would soon call at Picton and take them all home to Middlesbrough.

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But it had turned back on the moors and returned to Whitby, so they had to wait for the next one – which terminated at Eaglescliffe.

“They told us that another train would be sent from Middlesbrough to take us home. At last it came and we got in joyfully.

“But our joy was premature – it waited and waited and waited, finally going out of the station and standing in a siding.

“Then it was 1.12 – we had a brilliant idea; we would lunch!

“So we produced our basket and had an enormous picnic, which the little girls enjoyed wildly. Luckily we had a carriage to ourselves.

“Finally we got home at 2.15 with no further adventures, but we felt that if we had been called upon to choose a place to lunch in, we should not have fixed on a third class carriage in a siding outside Eaglescliffe!”

The Northern Echo: TRAVELS: Gertrude Bell, seated between Winston Churchill and TH Laurence.

Gertrude Bell, seated between Winston Churchill and TH Laurence just beneath the face of the sphinx

Gertrude graduated later that year and started a remarkable career climbing Alps, riding camels across the desert, becoming the first female spy in the British army, and drawing up the boundaries of modern Iraq.

Her stepmother, Florence, became a noted writer of plays and history – perhaps her most well known book is At the Works, which describes Middlesbrough in 1907.

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And her father, Hugh, inherited his father’s title in 1904 and his seat on the NER board. Indeed, at the family home of Red Barns, a private halt was provided at the bottom of the garden even though it was only a couple of hundred yards from Redcar station.

The Northern Echo: Red Barns in Redcar, once the home of Gertrude Bell.

Above: The Bells' home at Red Barns in Redcar where Sir Hugh, below, had a private halt at the bottom of the garden

The Northern Echo: IRONFOUNDER: Sir Hugh Bell, who built the Ingleby Arncliffe water tower. Today's front cover shows Sir Hugh, on the left, aged 82 in 1926, stepping on site during the construction of the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle

Sir Hugh’s entry on Wikipedia tells a lovely story to show how he was treated as railway royalty. On King’s Cross station one day, he was chatting with his daughter, Lady Florence Richmond, until it was time for the train to head north. When the train did not leave on time, they carried on talking until a guard eventually plucked up courage to approach them and say: "If you would like to finish your conversation, Sir Hugh, we will then be ready to depart."

If only Gertrude, “the Queen of the Desert”, had received similar service on her 1890 day-trip, she would not have been forced to have her picnic dessert in a siding at Egglescliffe.

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  •  Many thanks to Ian for his story. He writes for the North Eastern Railway Association, more details of which can be found at ner.org.uk