A series of Christmas services will still run

The Weardale Railway opened on 17 July and services have been operating on a five-mile track between Stanhope and Wolsingham in County Durham.

But services have now been suspended because of technical problems with a steam engine.

Organisers say a planned series of special festive services in the run-up to Christmas will still go ahead.

The problems are with a former South Wales colliery engine, which is on loan from its South Yorkshire owner. In South Wales, it was used to draw wagons up steep gradients at the old Mardi Colliery before it was mothballed.

It had been running before on a council-owned heritage line near Barnsley.

Engineers discovered major steam leaks on the engine.

Weardale Railways Ltd managing director Brain Morris said: "We can only apologise to customers who may have been planning to travel on the line this weekend, but we have no alternative but to end our season earlier than planned.

"Like other new heritage lines in Britain, we have run into some teething problems since we started three months ago but these will not interfere with our plans to extend the Weardale line and run our Santa specials this year."

The �5m project won cash from a number of sources including the Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Regional Development Fund.

In 2005, it is hoped the line will be extended to Eastgate and in 2006 to Bishop Auckland. The aim is in four to five years, the railway will be carrying 90,000 passengers.