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BBC Radio 4 - 92 to 94 FM and 198 Long Wave

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OPEN COUNTRY

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	PROGRAMME INFO

	Saturday 6.10-6.35am Repeated Thursday 1.30-2.00pm


	From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique. Email: [email protected] Postal address: Open Country, BBC Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.


	LISTEN AGAIN


	Listen to Open Country for 23 April 2005


	PRESENTERS

	HELEN MARK and RICHARD URIDGE



	More about Helen Mark




	More about Richard Uridge


	PROGRAMME DETAILS

	Saturday 23 April 2005
Richard Uridge is literally being taken for a ride on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, which runs for 18 miles between the market town of Pickering and the village of Grosmont in the North York Moors National Park. One of the oldest lines in the north, it was a victim of the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, but the enthusiasm of locals and railway fans saw the line re-opened for steam trains in 1975. Richard spends a day in the life of the railway, meeting up with some of the people who keep it all going. North Yorkshire Moors Railway Best of all, he's been given a precious footplate pass to travel actually in the engine and there he's given a lesson in stoking with fireman Paul Fox. There's more to keeping the engine going than Richard ever imagined. Richard meets Philip Benham, the General Manager of the railway, at his office in Pickering. He's delighted to come back to steam at the end of his career with the railways. This summer, he tells Richard, they are planning to restore the line as far as the coast, running trains from Pickering all the way to Whitby. This hasn't happened on a regular basis for 40 years. Keith Pardy is a fitter in the engine shed at Grosmont where the trains are serviced and repaired. Spares for steam trains are few and far between these days, and the staff frequently make things from scratch. Keith travels 114 miles a day to and from Sunderland, but says to Richard the job's absolutely worth it. Also at Grosmont Richard meets John Fletcher, a man who wears many hats in the organisation, running the engine shed and driving being but two of them. He's been involved with the railway for 25 years. Another victim of the Beeching cuts, he's thrilled to be able to spend his life with steam trains again. Jackie Bevan is a cleaner at Pickering station who'd never seen a steam train till she started the job. Now she's fiercely proud of the trains and says she finds keeping the carriages and platforms spick and span very satisfying. The train Richard's travelling on is being driven by Adrian Landi, who comes up from Kent several times a year to drive on this line. He takes Richard through the vast array of dials and levers in the cab of the engine - it's much more complicated than driving a car, he says - but very much more pleasurable! On the platform Richard meets Brian Fear and Derek Lovett, ex-railway firemen from Wales who spend their retirement travelling round the country visiting steam lines. It turns out that the train Richard's been riding on was based only four miles from where the Welshmen live. Email Open Country: [email protected] The BBC is not responsible for external web sites

	RELATED LINKS BBC Holiday Category BBC Country file