SPECTATOR'S been loathe to make comparisons between the Wensleydale and Weardale railway projects. Until now, that is.

Recent weeks have seen the Weardale project plunge into crisis due to "a funding gap". The company which runs the summer services on the five-mile line between Wolsingham and Stanhope has had to make no less than 36 staff redundant because the grants it expected to receive amounted to only £1.4m rather than the £3.5m.

Three dales down the Pennines, the admirable Wensleydale Railway Company has been running services successfully for two years between Leeming Bar and Leyburn (and latterly Redmire) without so much as a bean from the public purse. An interesting comparison, we think.

Nightmare in Emgate

DRIVING may still be an imperfect art to some people in some cases. Spectator, however, witnessed an example of perfect motoring stupidity as he drove up the narrow Emgate in Bedale, an area which he fervently hopes will be spotlighted in a forthcoming traffic management study.

Owing to past experience, local knowledge and the reasonable principle of give and take, he stopped to allow precedence to a slightly wider people carrier coming down the hill only a few yards away.

At which point the impatient driver of a car visible in his rear view mirror decided to overtake, only to cause a demonstrable traffic hazard by having to reverse in the face of some choice words issuing from the driver of the people carrier.

The incident reinforced Spectator's view that there are some people who shouldn't even be on the road. It also reminded him of the school of thought that says you can never hope to manage traffic in Bedale. You can only try to control it, and even then probably with imperfect results.

A quiet Christmas

Leaving aside our adventures in Bedale's Emgate, a post-Christmas trip to Hampshire for a wedding should be a breeze, we thought. Counting on quiet roads turned out to be a mistake. All the world and his wife, sister, cousins and aunt were on the M1 and M25 on the two public holidays after Boxing Day. Doesn't anybody stay at home at Christmas these days?

Any old iron

If Darlington Town Hall is torn down to make way for a new one and an Tesco supermarket, we trust Resurgence - the metal sculpture/artwork which has pride of place at the front of the Sixties' carbuncle- is swept away with it, or perhaps reformed into something ironically useful, like some shopping trollies perhaps.