There are functioning steam railways in other countries: tourists in France can go for a ride in Brittany or the Cévennes; so can visitors travelling to the Dandenong Ranges in Australia. Mallorca has a narrow-gauge line that transports passengers through olive groves and pine forests in vintage wooden carriages. But no other country has a heritage railway sector anywhere near as vibrant as the UK’s, where more than 170 services traverse around 600 miles of track and call at 460 stations.
Just a few years after the first of these railways opened at Talyllyn in north Wales, in 1951, a fictional Welsh steam engine became the main character in the children’s television serial Ivor the Engine. On lines originally built for slate quarries, north Wales still has the biggest cluster of steam railways, but they exist in all four nations of the UK, typically operating seasonal timetables in tourist areas. The longest is the Welsh Highland, which runs from Caernarfon past the foot of Snowdon to Porthmadog. At Swanage in Dorset, and a handful of other locations, there have been trials linking up heritage services with the main rail network (although Swanage concluded that its scheme was not commercially viable and will not repeat it this year). These railways are living museums – with stations decked out in period style. Some staff wear costumes too.
