South Tynedale Railway

For an hour of my life I was transferred back to my childhood, a time when the family used to make its yearly pilgrimage, via steam train, to see my mother's relatives in Burton on Trent. The scale of things may have been different in those days; the train being the Devonian Express which ran from Bradford Forster Square Station all the way down to Paignton and the journey a tad longer but the excitement was just the same for both journeys. Me and Sal sat waiting in the carriage like a couple of excited kids and I don't think we were the only ones. There's something about railways like the South Tynedale which takes people back to happier, carefree times when the world seemed to run at half the pace it does today.

Our engine for today was The Naworth. This locomotive formerly worked for National Coal Board, North East Area at Horden Colliery, County Durham and was constructed in 1952 by Hudswell-Clarke & Co. of Leeds. It took a wee bit of time to get it's speed up but then seemed to chug along nicely on the South Tynedale Railways 2 foot gauge track. In fact it reached speedy heights of around 15mph in places!

We had our own Jolly Fat Controller who made sure everything ran like clockwork and who, if there were any children on the train, made sure one of then blew the whistle and waved the green lag to set the wheels in motion. I thought that was a very nice touch. We also had a poor little terrier dog on boardfor our outward journey (see photo below). It couldn't work out what exactly was going on and was quite frightened until the Fat Controller made a fuss of it. It seemed to calm down a bit after that.

The current line is only about three and three quarters of a mile long at present (even though it seemed a lot longer) and stops at two stations: Kirkhaugh and Lintley Halt. An extension has been built to Slaggyford a mile and a half away and, even though the build is complete, it will not be open to the public until Easter 2018. They had hoped to have it open for July this year. There are also ambitious plans afoot to extend the line to its original length and meet up with the main line at Haltwhistle, a distance of over 13 miles. That would be fabulous if they could.

So me and Sal travelled to the end of the line with the intention of following the simple trackside path to Slaggyford and then walk to the next village called Knarburn, have a pint in The Kirkstyle Inn before going back on a later train. I immediately took us off on the wrong path and we somehow finished up on The Pennine way! I had trainers on and the going in places was slippy and muddy so I wasn't really a happy bunny but I have to admit that it was very scenic. Added to that, the walk on the road from Slaggyford was a bit longer than I remembered so this gave me more to grumble about. I have to put my hand up to this gaff though and shouldn't have complained, but I did!

As usual Sal took all this very seriously and proceeded to laugh at me, pull funny faces of me and call me a grumpus for the rest of the day. The pint really touched the spot though and, suitably refreshed, we set of back along the road to Slaggyford. This time we walked up to the station and found the path we should have come up by. If truth be told, it was rather tedious and boring path compared to the Pennine Way path but I thought on this occasion it would be best just to keep my mouth shut! Once back at Lindley Halt, we had about a fifteen minute wait for our train back to Alston but there is a picnic area by the station so this was no hardship.

Despite my grumblings, this was one of the best days out I've had in ages. Mind you, it always helps when your companion is as childish and as nerdy as you are...