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The York and North Midland Railway (Y&NMR) was an English railway company that opened in 1839 connecting York with the Leeds and Selby Railway, and in 1840 extended this line to meet the North Midland Railway at Normanton near Leeds. Its first chairman was the railway financier George Hudson, who had been called the railway king.
The railway expanded, by building new lines or buying or leasing already built ones, to serve Hull, Scarborough, Whitby, Market Weighton and Harrogate. In 1849 Hudson resigned as chairman as an investigation found financial irregularities in his running of the company. The results of a price war in the early 1850s led to amalgamation and on 31 July 1854 the Y&NMR merged with the Leeds Northern Railway and the York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway to form the North Eastern Railway.