Full steam ahead

The truly extraordinary story of Kirkby Stephen East, culminating in this weekend’s steam-powered 150th anniversary celebration of the Stainmore Railway, may no better be illustrated than by Mr Stuart Boulton, the photographer on the job.

Snappers are a sub-branch of the inky trade forever in a hurry, permanently needing to be ten miles away 20 minutes previously.

At Kirkby Stephen East, Stuart stays for 75 minutes and records 726 images. If every picture tells a story, what might 726 achieve?

The station was originally part of the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway, opened in 1861 between West Auckland, Darlington and Barnard Castle in the east and Tebay and Penrith to the west. Stainmore Summit, 1,370ft, was the highest point – and among the bleakest – on the English network.

The last passenger train left in January 1962. The station became a bobbin factory, the buildings deteriorated, the company went bust in 1992.

For that forlorn little bit of railway heritage, it really did seem like the end of the line.

MIKE Thompson was a railwayman’s son from Peterborough, a “dyed-in-the-wool LNER man,” he supposes. Though he trained as a doctor and became a leading diabetes specialist and lecturer, his heart remained standard gauge.

He was a regular support crew member when the restored locomotive Sir Nigel Gresley again raced north – and, reluctantly, south again – and in 1986 bought himself a saddle tank, or whatever remained of it.

"Among the politer things we were called were dreamers and no-hopers. It was a hugely daunting task, but I never really thought we wouldn't do it." - railwayman's son Mike Thompson

Superseded by what Thomas the Tank Engine dismissively termed a diseasel, engine No 2084 was sent to a preserved railway in north Wales, was rarely fired and much less with enthusiasm and eventually was sold to a scrapyard.

Even there, the brass and copper was removed and 2084 abandoned.

That’s where Mike came along.

After 13 years restoration she steamed again, was brought to KSE at the end of 1999 and named FC Tingey in memory of one of the restoration team.

The little engine, Fred to its friends, now stands immaculately at KSE – gleaming, steaming, tall in the saddle once more.

THOUGH 2084 had been restored at Carnforth, in Lancashire, Mike longed for the weft and whiff of the LNER.

In 1997, he was one of a group which bought the 6.5-acre site at KSE, three years later helped form the Stainmore Railway Company, which he chairs.

The place was as trackless as an Amazon jungle, and just about as impenetrable.

The buildings were barely recognisable shells, the roof close to collapse, the land so contaminated with 7,500 tons of industrial waste that it cost them £300,000 to remove it.

The aim from the start was to transform the former station into a railway heritage centre, to preserve it for future generations, to restore steam operation and to work with the wider community.

“Among the politer things we were called were dreamers and no-hopers,” Mike recalls. “It was certainly a hugely daunting task, but I never really thought we wouldn’t do it.

“It’s the only railway centre in the world, operated entirely by volunteers, to have returned to steam passenger working after a gap of 50 years.

“You don’t give something 14 years of your life and not become attached to it. I suppose Saturday is going to be a bit emotional.”

AMONG the volunteers is Dr Sue Jones, the company secretary, who’s a diabetes consultant at Hartlepool and North Tees hospitals. She and Mike Thompson married last year, shortly after he’d taken early retirement – at 50 – to swap surgical scrubs for engineman’s overalls and devote himself full-time, unpaid, to the project.

They live in Sedgefield, more than an hour away, but have a mobile home near the station.

“I’m here seven days a week, often until ten or 11 o’clock and then back again at seven in the morning. It hardly seems worth going home at all,” says Mike.

“Last winter was particularly bad for the volunteers. We had a thermometer on the scaffolding and it was minus eight or minus nine, bloody freezing. When we got back to the mess room, it was minus 15.”

Instead of wedding presents they’d asked for donations towards the SRC, though the requested cement mixer – “a real boon,” says Sue – was duly delivered.

The wedding cake was topped with an icing sugar saddle tank, the wedding breakfast was held on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

“Sue had been interested in railways, but probably not to my extent,” Mike concedes. “She has been happy for me to take early retirement and to look after me financially so that I can work on the railway seven days a week.

“I’d been doing a lot of voluntary work before, but this would have been impossible without Sue. This place is unrecognisable from what it was even two years ago; it’s starting to look like a railway now.”

SO it is. Around 30 volunteers are beavering away last Saturday morning, ensuring that all’s ready for this weekend’s sesquicentennial spectacular.

Dancing, excited, among them is four-year-old Ellie Belah Keefe – Belah was the line’s highest, longest and most unforgettable viaduct – whose father Mark is the SRC’s press officer.

“Mike’s good at so much, not least at filling in grant application forms,” says Mark. “Some of them are the thickness of a telephone directory.”

The platform’s restored right down to a mock-up of a Nestle’s chocolate machine, withdrawn in 1939 when rationing began. The new lamps are electric but look like they’re cooking on gas, the museum overflows – there’s even a sign for the “horses’ booking office” – the buffet again blows hot and cold, the shop’s stocked with souvenirs.

“I’m Kirkby Stephen born and bred and this is just head-spinning, unbelievable,” says Mark, who’d worked at the bobbin factory.

“It had got into a really terrible state. The roof was coming down, the train shed walls were all green and the contamination was incredible.

Our bait cabin was in the former station master’s office, where the water just cascaded through the ceiling.”

The undisputed main attraction, though, is that for the first time in almost half a century there’ll be a steam-hauled passenger train from Kirkby Stephen East.

Recently restored 78019, which began service there in 1956, will haul specially hired carriages in British Rail livery – less than a quarter-of-amile at first, but whoever would have thought it?

They hope soon to go further and faster, the eventual aim to link Kirkby Stephen on the Stainmore line with Appleby, via Warcop, on the Settle and Carlisle. Perhaps privately they also look eastwards towards County Durham – “eight miles at 1- in-60 out of Kirkby Stephen,” someone says, “just imagine steam on that.”

The chairman, as amiable as he is charismatic, insists he’ll be there until the day that he’s shunted off in a box. He sits in the distinctly functional mess room, eyeing the future.

“There’ll be plenty who still call me a dreamer,” he says. “This isn’t the end, we won’t be sitting on our laurels. As chairman you have to look ahead, and getting passenger trains running again is only the start.

The photographer presses the shutter for the 726th time. Overall impression, Mike Thompson looks a picture of contentment.

• SUPPORTED by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Stainmore 150 weekend begins with a reopening ceremony at 9.30am on Saturday.

Admission is free, with a small charge for train rides behind 78019. Other attractions include Kirkby Stephen Silver Band, exhibitions, guided walks, craft and trade stalls, vintage buses and an old-style fairground. Full details on stainmore150.co.uk