FIFTY years on, they are preparing to remember the loss of an old friend.

Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral on an April day in 1954, but death had come as no surprise because the patient had been ailing for a long time.

A decade before Richard Beeching cut a swathe through the rest of the country's rail network, harsh economics saw the last fare-paying passengers carried by train for 40 miles between Northallerton and Garsdale.

For just over a century the link between east and west, rising from the flat farmlands of the North Riding to the hills of upper Wensleydale and the mountains of the Cumberland border, had constituted a scenic journey in high summer and a lifeline for rural communities in unforgiving, snowbound winters.

There came a time when the passengers were no longer there, however, and railway accountants going through the books diagnosed a terminal case. It was announced that the service was being used by only 2.5pc of the local community and withdrawal would save up to £14,500 a year.

As the modern saying goes, it had been a classic case of use it or lose it, and on Saturday, April 24, 1954, the last 40-mile journey there and back was made behind a 65-year-old steam engine.

The train had been known as Old Faithful and, even if its daily loyalty had not been reciprocated in passenger payments, local people marked its passing in style.

A funeral wreath was fixed to the front of the engine and black mourning material was attached to carriage handles. Jeff Pocklington, a Crakehall undertaker, became a figure of folklore in full dress by solemnly bowing and doffing his top hat as the train passed his village station.

One of the surviving passengers, 70-year-old Jim Sedgwick, recalls: "On the other side of Hawes people had a load of old wartime black-out material at the side of the track saying: 'Death of a veteran, Old Faithful, rest in peace'."

Mr Sedgwick, a retired farmer and local historian from Northallerton, says: "I remember a lot of photographs being taken at Northallerton, with Bill Hodgson (a local commercial photographer) sitting on the engine tender among all the coal to get some shots of the crew.

"It was a sad occasion, because we liked our old branch passenger, as we called it, and we knew the driver because he used to borrow our boar pig for breeding.

"We were all aware that it was the end of an era. People forget just how important the railway was for 100-odd years. Road transport has now replaced it altogether, but for a long time it meant the difference between life and death for farmers."

One of Mr Sedgwick's prized possessions is an 11s 8d day return ticket between Northallerton and Garsdale on the last day. He should have surrendered it to the fearsomely correct booking office clerk on returning to Northallerton, but the 20-year-old smuggled it out through a devious route and it survives in pristine condition.

One third of the train crew on the final day was 77-year-old Derick Appleton, from Thirsk, who spent the journey shovelling coal in both directions as a young fireman based at Northallerton engine shed. His driver, Ronnie May, and guard, George Ezard, are both dead.

The train left Northallerton at 4.10pm, returning from Garsdale at 6.40pm. Mr Appleton says the crew treated it as another daily journey and recalls: "We had to keep time irrespective of the occasion, because we never knew who was on the train and who might have had to catch a connection at Garsdale or at Northallerton.

"It was an exciting but sad occasion, with people standing on the track side and waving across the fields. It was surprising how many people there were. Some were wearing old-time dress.

"The scenery was marvellous and I loved doing that run about every four weeks. The pay as a fireman was quite good, too, better than most people were getting at that time."

Mr Appleton recalls how he and his colleagues were offered liquid refreshment from a mobile bar created by mourners in part of one of the four carriages. "We daren't take it, because we would have got the sack if we had."

Peter Blakey, now 74, made the last journey as a young employee of the Cow and Gate dairy at Northallerton, where he still lives.

Mr Blakey, who used to travel by train to undertake relief duty at a Cow and Gate depot at Coverham, recalls the enthusiastic overcrowding on that valedictory run.

"The carriages had the old-type compartments which usually carried about eight passengers. We set off from Northallerton with eight passengers in each, but by the time we got to Bedale it had increased to ten and at Hawes there were 12 or 13. People were just about hanging out of the windows.

"What I remember is going up the line and seeing people in the villages with special banners marking the last train, and as we approached Bedale station there were banks of photographers taking pictures on one side of the crossing gates. It was the end of an era."

A pragmatic view is taken by 69-year-old David Barraclough, of West Witton, who spent 19 years in the traffic department of British Rail before managing the Hong Kong underground system for nine years.

Mr Barraclough was a young national serviceman when he made the historic final journey in 1954 on embarkation leave while waiting to go to Egypt with the Green Howards.

He believes it is important to keep things in perspective and, although he agrees that they were sad events 50 years ago, he says: "You have to remember that passengers were useful, but they had always hung on freight, which carried the passengers.

"Freight on the branch was great, including milk and stone. There was not much in the way of private cars then, but there was a good United bus service, which also took parcels.

"This line lasted nearly a quarter of a century after the LNER had had its first tranche of station closures elsewhere in the Thirties. Passengers between Northallerton and Garsdale went only ten years before Beeching."

The 50th anniversary, which by a quirk of the calendar falls exactly to the day, is being marked in Fifties style on April 24 by campaigners who have reinstated passenger services between Leeming Bar and Leyburn.

A modern train operated by Wensleydale Railway will run the entire 22-mile length of the remaining line between Northallerton and Redmire. Leaving Leeming Bar at 3.30, it will run to Castle Hills junction, Northallerton, to match the 1954 timing with a 4.10 departure for Redmire.

Passengers are invited to wear Fifties dress styles for the trip, which costs £25 for adults, £20 for children under 15 and is free to under-fives.

The package includes afternoon tea on the train. Bookings can be made by calling 01969 624581 between 10am and 5pm.

The last scheduled passenger train in Wensleydale, between Northallerton and Leyburn, ran on April 25, 1954. On that day this year Wensleydale Railway is running four trains between Leeming Bar and Leyburn, starting at 10.30