A NEW agreement between rail firms, campaigners and local authorities could boost outlying branch-line services in North Yorkshire and Cleveland.

A successful rail management system used in rural Germany could be introduced on the Esk Valley line, bringing services and infrastructure under greater community control.

The Esk Valley Railway Development Company recently held talks with the Pickering-based North York Moors Railway about closer working and new services.

The event was the first consultative meeting of the North York Moors Historical Railway Trust, the charity which owns the Pickering line.

Trust chairman Roger Heath introduced Dr Paul Salveson, a director of the Esk Valley Railway Development Company, who is also general manager of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships and has worked on rail schemes across the UK.

He spoke about German lines around Dusseldorf, where local ownership and control had led to a 300pc increase in passengers, providing funding for new trains.

The meeting was attended by national park and local authority officers.

NYMR consultant Tom Greaves gave an update on progress to rebuild the line's southern link from Pickering to the York-Scarborough line, and on other plans for direct Pickering-to-Whitby trains.

The Esk Valley Railway Development Company is working for better, modern services.

Co-secretary Neil Buxton, of Sleights, told the D&S Times this week: "It's difficult for large rail companies to serve outreaching lines without local support. We're working with Arriva Trains to see how we can improve things in the short term.

"Ultimately, we'd like to manage the Esk Valley line, trains, staff and infrastructure on behalf of a larger rail operator."

He said the German rail management scheme was helped by powerful regional government.

"There's talk of new regional assemblies in Britain. These could be very good for railways. At present, regional train services come under the control of all sorts of councils and passenger transport authorities. Under new regional assemblies, regional services could be better co-ordinated."

He stressed that the Esk Valley company was primarily concerned with running modern train services rather than heritage lines.

Arriva Trains currently runs rural northern services plus the lucrative Trans-Pennine services to large towns and cities.

However, it recently failed to be included on a shortlist of firms considered for the forthcoming Trans-Pennine franchise beginning in 2004.

Mr Buxton thought this situation would focus Arriva's energies on the remaining rural franchise, known as the Northern Franchise. This includes the Esk Valley, Bishop Auckland and Saltburn lines.

He said these new ideas were backed by Arriva, the Strategic Rail Authority and Network Rail, which replaced Railtrack. He was optimistic things would improve.

The NYMR and Esk Valley campaigners were all keen to increase passenger and freight services across the moors. Pilot operations on the Esk Valley branch were being discussed.