DVLR chairman hails record visitor numbers

THE chairman of Yorkshire’s Derwent Valley Light Railway has hailed the‘buzz’ around the heritage line after it carried a record number of passengers over the summer and welcomed an influx of new volunteers.

Based in York’s Murton Park, the home of the Yorkshire Museum of Farming, the railway operates on a half-mile stretch of the original DVLR that ran 15 miles from York Layerthorpe to Cliffe Common, near Selby. It opened in 1912 for mainly agricultural traffic, although passenger trains ran from 1913 until 1926, and it closed in 1981, by which time it was one of the last privatelyrun commercial standard gauge lines in the country. Preservationists took over the line within the park in 1990, and regular passenger services started in 1993.

It now has a fleet of 10 diesels, comprising seven industrial and three ex-BR locomotives – Class 03 No. 03079 (D2079), Class 04 D2245, and Class 08 No. 08528 (D3690).

While passenger numbers may be overshadowed by those on such major heritage lines as the DVLR’s neighbour, the North Yorkshire Moors Railway 25 miles up the road, any record is worth celebrating, and the DVLR is no exception.

Passenger numbers have increased every year since records began in 2011, and the upward graph has continued this year, as explained by chairman Craig Benton: “In the early days we were getting about 3300 during a whole season, from April to the end of September. This year we had achieved a new record of 5231 passengers by the end of June, when there was three months of the season still to go.”

The railway, which ends its summer season on October 2, has also seen an influx of new volunteers that has boosted the line’s Tuesday gang, working on several projects. One of these is an overhaul of 1941-built Drewry 0-4-0DM DC 2164, which the railway says is coming on “in leaps and bounds,” with a new cab expected to be in place by the end of September. “The team working on the Drewry have really surprised us all as to how much progress has been made. It really is tremendous,” said Craig. “Overall, for a small railway we are working very well together, with a real buzz about the place. The majority of our engines and rolling stock have very recently been, or are being, painted, which is very rare for a railway.”

Jonathan Stockwell, the railway’s archivist and quarterly newsletter editor, supports the positive air at Murton Park. “With increased passenger numbers and an increase in working members, 2022 appears to be an excellent year,” he writes in the latest newsletter issue. “There is so much happening these days.”

Daily visit: Class J25 No. 65714 calls at the Derwent Valley Light Railway station of Wheldrake with the daily freight on June 7, 1960, when the 0-6-0 was 60 years old and still had seven months to go before withdrawal from York (50A). The station opened in July 1913 and handled passenger traffic until September 1926, but remained open for freight until its closure in 1968 – 13 years before the line itself closed. The out-of-sight station building beyond the locomotive was dismantled and rebuilt at York’s Murton Park to become the base for the preservationera Derwent Valley Light Railway, which chairman Craig Benton describes as “buzzing”. DVLR ARCHIVES/VIC NUTTON TRAVEL LENS PHOTOGRAPHY

Good shot: The Derwent Valley Light Railway station of Murton Park, York, on August 28, with ex-BR Class 08 No. 08528 (D3690) waiting to depart with a passenger train. At the rear is Ruston & Hornsby 165DS class 0-4-0DM British Sugar, and on the platform a group of volunteers is ready to entertain visitors with the line’s traditional Bank Holiday weekend cowboy shoot-out. MIKE WILCOX