Dozens of railway lines branch out across a rare, tiled 123-year-old map in an unvisited corner of a platform in Beverley Station.

Among them is an intriguing track that was never built.

In 1897 an Act was passed to construct the North Holderness Railway from Beverley to a point between North Frodingham and Beeford.

Despite getting funding, it never materialised – with the passion for railways fizzling out, historian Professor Barbara English suggests, as motor cars came to the fore. In 1895 there were just 14 or 15 cars on Britain's roads – a number that shot up by 1900 to around 700 to 800.

Beverley historian Professor Barbara English by the rare tiled railway map in Beverley Station, showing the never built North Holderness Railway.

Prof English said: “They kept downgrading it, first from a standard gauge to a light railway to narrow-gauge - then a bus.” Postcards unearthed from East Riding Archives show charming pictures of the North Eastern Railway bus at White Cross, Brandesburton and Beeford.

Only nine of the maps made for North Eastern Railway Company, later LNER, still survive in their original locations.

The tilemaker – Craven Dunnill Jackfield – remains in business today and has made reproductions from the original patterns – one of which can be seen at Hunmanby Station in North Yorkshire.

With little else to entertain passengers Prof English suggests the map is well worth a look – if only to wonder at the cathedrals, castles and battles listed to presumably pique the interest of Edwardian travellers.

The forgotten railway discovered on a rare tiled map at Beverley Station