When the northbound train from Leeds stopped at Ribblehead, I was greeted by Tony Beckwith who, with his wife Pat, has moved into a flat next to the visitor centre at the station. The family is completed by a dog named Rex and seven chickens.

Asked about his first impressions of Ribblehead, Tony used one word: "paradise".

The station is now leased by the Settle and Carlisle Railway Trust, who have restored the building. Tony and Pat have a workaday background that was radically different from their new job caring for an isolated Victorian building that tickles the 1,000-ft contour.

Visitors, who on the day of my visit included a party of excited children from Huddersfield, have their imagination fired in the former waiting room by photographs showing Ribblehead Viaduct in the course of construction.

In their station flat, Pat and Tony have decked the main walls with framed pictures of rail-carriages under construction to remind Tony of his job at the York Carriage Works. His service with this once major company spanned 32 years. When he started in 1964, there were 3,764 workers, plus two cats, named Bluey and Max.

Pat, a native of Mirfield, became familiar with the dale country in the 1980s as a general registered nurse, an occupation she had for 35 years. She has just retired from the health service at Scarborough. The Beckwiths have two married daughters, Wendy and Alison.

When in the mood, Tony breaks into song, having a preference for ballads. His fondness for rail traffic will be fully satisfied at Ribblehead where steam specials are occasional visitors and a passenger service is maintained by Northern Rail.

By day and night, coal trains go thundering southwards from Scotland
to the power stations. From the power stations an important by-product, gypsum, returns along the same line to a siding at Kirkby Thore in Edenvale, where it is processed into special boarding.