After an 11-year campaign, the first passengers travelled along the re-opened Weardale Railway on Saturday. Chris Lloyd joined the celebrations on the first train on the line.

A LONG, loud toot on a whistle stops the applause. The railway has been officially declared open to great acclaim, but there is no railway without a train.

The umbrellas rise as tippy-toed people on Stanhope platform stare down the track towards the toot of the whistle. The pungent smell of steam comes first, then billows of white smoke plume up above the treetops.

Another long toot on the whistle and finally, at last, engine No 2392, built in Darlington in 1923, comes slowly round the corner and into view.

This is something that many people in the dale and beyond have been dreaming of, and working towards, since freight stopped moving by rail on the line in 1993.

No 2392 is a big, black brute. Quite filthy. Huge wheels turning and large slabs of greased metal moving as she comes under the footbridge. She is crammed with cameras recording her every respiration for posterity - something she is used to as she is on loan from the North York Moors Railway where she has starred in an episode of the Heartbeat TV programme.

Amazingly for such a monster, No 2392 glides quite effortlessly to a stop in the station, announcing her arrival with a cloud of tropical steam pouring out from under her belly.

Her driver jumps down, his boots leaving perfect prints in coal dust on the shiny wet surface of the rebuilt station. This is the arrival of the first scheduled passenger train in Weardale since June 27, 1953. No 2392 can truly be said to have returned a heartbeat to the dale.

Her carriages are made up of compartments with comfortable, springy seats.

They quickly fill, people chatting across the aisles. Chief Whip and local MP Hilary Armstrong is squeezed into a compartment, but before anyone can ask her about the rumoured Cabinet reshuffle, she finds herself reshuffled to the front of the train. She is supposed to be in the guard's van - standing with Sir William McAlpine, chairman of the railway.

"I've told Tony that it's the opening of the Weardale Railway, so it won't happen this weekend," she says, disappearing with a cheery wave.

At 11.14am, one minute early, the first train moves off, slowly but surely, picking up pace, finding a rhythm like a heart finding a beat. She follows the shingley bed of the River Wear, sheep scattering in fear up the daleside, it is many generations since their ancestors were troubled by such smoke-belching dragons. The cows, though, are unconcerned. The return of regular steam is just something else for them to chew on.

Every conceivable vantage point along the line is filled with people sheltering from the rain, but eagerly witnessing this piece of history. Adults wave enthusiastically at the passing carriages; embarrassed children are forced to join in knowing that it really is rather foolish to wave at moving lumps of metal.

Across the green fields beneath the stately house of Rogerley, a couple of children chase the train on a quad bike.

Photographers are everywhere, even in the middle of the river. Some squint through digital cameras held at arm's length; others hold up their mobile video-phones - new-fangled technology from the electronic era recording the return of old-fashioned machinery from the industrial age.

"Won't it be great," says someone in the compartment. "We'll soon be able to get a train from Wolsingham direct to London." Such is progress. Back in Victorian times, 150 years ago, such a journey was commonplace.

The train is applauded into Frosterley where there is another ceremony in the pouring rain and where there's a little stall on the platform selling tea and coffee in real china mugs. Grandads peer knowledgeably inside No 2392 and point out important levers and rods to their grandchildren or anyone else who cares to listen; others pore over old maps re-locating the lines, inclines and tramways that once criss-crossed the dale.

Ten minutes later down at Wolsingham, the rain has momentarily stopped for more speeches. Everyone dismounts to listen and the train disappears to turn round ready for the journey home.

The re-built Wolsingham station is on many levels with a slanting stone road-bridge going over the track at a jaunty angle. Every level and every parapet is full of people craning necks to see.

"You in the carriages won't have heard, but people were actually cheering as the train came in," someone says. "This is an amazing day." The day rail was brought back to the dale.