When I worked in Bury (and lived in West End), in the early 60s, I used to go by train. They were steam trains and I loved them. They were often dirty, always cold in Winter and a bit noisy but there was something about a steam engine that the modern ones just don't have. My grandfather was the Station Master at Church & Oswaldtwistle station in the 1910s and 20s so maybe it's in the blood.
Some years later, after I was married, we lived in Whitby, North Yorks. The Whitby to Pickering railway line had been axed by Beeching but the N Yorks Moors Railway Society decided to open up the old line. My husband joined and used to go with the children, on a Sunday, helping to clear it. The steam trains started to run on it about a year before we left the area.
Last time I travelled by steam train was in the Lake District, on the line to Windermere. I loved every minute of it - though I fell asleep on the way back, just like I always did on the Bury train.
