Mick Rawlings, of Leeds, was the driver for the inaugural run of a new summer service between Skipton and Carlisle. The train was "topped and tailed" by heritage locomotives, with carriages of the 1960s to afford old-fashioned comforts.

Mick was at the controls of a Class 33, to the delight of a carriageful of enthusiasts for that type of traction which, let it be whispered, was most commonly used in the South until recent times. The locomotive we saw is stabled at Carnforth, as is the Class 47 that formed the rearguard to our train.

Class 33 fans, from all over the land, were not of the rowdy sort that television loves to portray, but good-natured admirers of a type of locomotive built about 60 years ago and still capable of Herculean work.

Unlike most "specials", this train was of the stopping variety. It collected passengers at Hellifield, Settle and Appleby.

We travelled northwards, through North Ribblesdale, with the outline of the leonine form of Penyghent blunted by rain. We entered an area of austere fells beyond Ribblehead and then beheld the verdant Eden Valley, with its outcropping new red sandstone, in the glare of summer sunlight.

The wheels had a familiar de-de-de-dah drumming on old-type track which is to be replaced. On the return journey we ran mainly on welded stretches, expensively relaid and making little more than a swishing sound. The Settle-Carlisle, once threatened with closure, now copes with heavy traffic in coal, gypsum and, latterly, cement.

Roger Hardingham, of Kingfisher Railtours, briefly surveyed for me a life spent "in steam".

He was keen that the new train service would capture both the enthusiast market for England's famous railway and also the tourist trade.

The Settle-Carlisle is noted for its massive engineering. I was sitting opposite Tony Freschini, who supervised the restoration of Ribblehead viaduct. He recalled the day when a workman reported seeing a coffin with a human arm sticking out. (It turned out to be a hoax; the arm was made of rubber).

At Appleby, Tony mentioned his work on a concrete bridge accommodating the motorway. And we saw the Crown Street replacement bridge at Carlisle, an immense structure that was moved, slowly, to its position on a multi-wheeled contraption.

Ruth Evans, the main organiser of a highly successful walk undertaken by more than 2,000 people across a temporarily closed Ribblehead viaduct, was her usual busy self. Mark Rand, chairman of the Friends of the Settle-Carlisle line, considered it was super to see special trains running on a line that once was supposed to be going to die.

Flitting up and down the train were blue-jerseyed stewards and On Train Guides – all cheerful volunteers. The Guides were available to describe the journey, pointing out historical facts and geographical features.

For details of the service, consult www.kingfisher
rail tours.co.uk. Or tel: 0845 053 3462/3463.