WHEN it was first rolled out 12 years ago, the campaign to bring passenger trains back to Wensleydale was seen by many as a Titfield Thunderbolt: a zany dream, achievable only on celluloid.

A series of apparently unsurmountable problems made it look more like Mission Impossible.

One by one, obstacles have been dismantled, clambered over or bought out. The eventual award of an Oscar began to look a possibility. To continue the metaphor: today's inaugural journey along a middle section of the intended full route amounts to a nomination by the Wensleydale Railway Association's peers.

The category? Best supporting role would fit because, if current political goodwill is to succeed in re-establishing the railways as a great force in national transport, it will be important to have InterCity arteries fed by thriving branch lines.

By its peers? The company has its track on 99-year lease from Network Rail and its chief executive speaks matter-of-factly of the mainstream railways as "the rest of the network". This is a serious railway. It is appropriate that the celebratory first train from Leeming Bar to Leyburn is not being hauled by a shiny clich preserved from the "great age of steam" but by the diesel workhorse that daily into the autumn will run to a timetable as a public service provided for Wensleydale by private enterprise.

For now, however, benefits will trickle down but slowly to most ordinary dales people via a limited number of extra tourists, those who may drive to Leeming to sample the short rail journey. Real, workaday use of the line will be postponed for most residents until services at reasonable fares connect to the main line at Northallerton.

But Northallerton station does not have a platform to receive commuters, shoppers and hoped-for holiday trade. One must be provided - very soon - perhaps with the help of a county council which has just proclaimed its commitment to improved rural railways.

Otherwise the enterprise may not survive to tackle the even more difficult task of extending west from Leyburn, largely across land minus its track and in divided ownership, to join the Settle-Carlisle beyond Hawes. Meanwhile, though, hearty congratulations go to all connected with the infant railway company.