The small railway with big ambitions

Until a few months ago Nick Wood was one of the management team at Crossrail, building a multi-billion pound main line railway deep beneath the streets of London running from east to west.

Now he's general manager of a much slower railway meandering through some of Yorkshire's most beautiful countryside. It runs for 16 miles but Nick insists that in the railway world, size isn't everything.

"I think our scenery beats anybody else's, we're the longest heritage railway in the UK and I think the more people who can experience that the better." Moreover, this is a railway which could be a key player in the future needs of the country.

"If we could link in with the Settle to Carlisle line we've got a brilliant bypass for the East Coast mainline, the West Coast mainline and the Midland mainline. It could prove invaluable for projects like HS2 (High Speed 2, the proposed high speed line from London to Scotland). If we could upgrade in time for that when work is going on, on the East Coast ad the West Coast they might want to use us as a diversionary route."

Nick has spent his entire career as a railwayman, first for Railtrack running stations such as Charing Cross and Fenchurch Street, and then as an area station manager for First Transpennine Trains before he moved to Crossrail.

Since the early days, the volunteers behind the restoration of the Wensleydale line dreamt of re-opening the entire route which originally ran from Northallerton to Garsdale. It was all closed to passengers in 1953, and parts of it to freight. Some of the track was lifted in the 1960s. Until 1992 the sole use was on the eastern section once a day, when heavy freight trains carried limestone from Redmire to Teesside.

Volunteers aimed to revive it and in 2003, by which time a public limited company has been created, they took on a 99-year lease from Network Rail enabling them to run passenger trains using redundant diesel carriages. The aim was to provide an all-year round regular service. It proved over-ambitious. The timetable was cut and several full-time staff were made redundant in 2005. Since then the line has operated mainly for tourists – and this seems the way the future lies. At the heart of its new plan is an extension of the track west into the Yorkshire Dales National Park at Aysgarth.

How this might be achieved was drawn up in a strategic five-year plan in the months leading up to Nick's appointment. But Nick is not keen on that timescale.

His priority is to renew the entire length of the time-expired existing track from Northallerton, at Castle Hills Junction through to the terminus at Redmire. The idea is that by renewing the track, larger, heavier locos would be able to visit the line, which in turn could attract more passengers. Once that is done the engineers can turn their attention to extending the route.

Nick Wood estimates that this will cost up to 3m and that's just for the materials. The bulk of the work would have to be carried out by volunteers, although the track-laying could be done by rail maintenance companies to train their apprentices.

The difficulties ahead can be seen at the western end of the existing line. From the platform at Redmire, Bolton Castle, the ancestral home of the Orde-Powlett family which once held the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots, is tantalisingly close. It can be reached on footpaths across fields good for walkers, but no use for prams or people in wheelchairs. Nick would love to extend the track a couple of miles west, giving tourist access to the castle and beyond. But the bridge needed to make the link was demolished in the 1970s and a new one would cost 500,000.

Yes, that's expensive but this railway ticks the right boxes on the green tourism agenda. "We need to get cars off the road and at the moment the only way to get to Aysgarth is on a bus, or in a car," says Nick. "And it's a small place, as are all the villages in the area. It would be nice to be able to say to people... 'Come off the A1 at Leeming, park your car and use the train to travel all the way to Aysgarth."

The National Park Authority gives the plans a guarded welcome. Jon Avison, head of park management, says: "In principle, although we do not have a formal position on the reinstatement of the line, the authority would wish to support any improvements in public transport to and within the area. Any proposals for the further development of the line within the National Park would have to be balanced against the impact it would have on the landscape, tranquillity and conservation of the park."

Consultants Ove Arup say the line is worth about 700,000 a year to the local economy. Extended at either end that could rise to 1.2m, by 2021, and more than 30 jobs could be created to work on the extension.

Nick Wood would like people to be able to get on a train at Kings Cross and be able to get off at Redmire without the train having to reverse at Northallerton as it does at the moment. For the Wensleydale line, the holy grail is a direct connection with the national rail network allowing northbound trains to turn left at Northallerton and keep going straight up into the dale – as they did until the 1950s.

The cost runs into millions of pounds. Some buildings would have to be demolished, or new bridges would have to be built.

Nick Wood says: "There's a lot of hoops to jump through, to get to that finished product. Just the planning applications can take time. So I don't think 2014 is realistic.

"We want to do it right, so let's not rush it. Let's get some decent plans in place and then look at sourcing the funding."

CW 22/5/10