The Middleton Railway’s ‘A Taste of Yorkshire’ Festival

National World - LocalTV

It’s all aboard as we visit The Middleton Railway in Hunslet, the world’s oldest continuously working railway, at its first ever food and drink festival called ‘A Taste of Yorkshire’.

Transcript

00:00I'm John Lincolns, I'm the event coordinator for A Taste of Yorkshire.

00:04The Middleton Railway, I suppose, is really significant because it's the world's oldest operational railway.

00:09It's got an Act of Parliament from 1758, which is the earliest on the statute books.

00:14We're also the first to successfully use steam for commercial freight traffic

00:18and also we're the country's oldest standard-gauge preserved railway

00:22operating for over 60 years entirely with volunteers.

00:25The Taste of Yorkshire Festival is really all about celebrating local food and local people.

00:29We've got local breweries, cider makers, we've got people doing pies, cheeses, Turkish delight.

00:36A lady who's a Ukrainian baker, so I was really keen to welcome her into our local community.

00:41I grew up visiting here as a child, always had a love for trains, effectively the railways of my life.

00:47So when I was old enough, I came down one day and signed up to volunteer.

00:54I love sharing my knowledge, whether it's with new volunteers or visitors,

00:57showing them around the site and really showing just how much pride goes into keeping these

01:01because a lot of work goes into them.

01:03I think the thing with a steam train is it's a living thing.

01:06The smell, the sound, the noise, it's all really, really something that draws people in.

01:11It's somehow really industrial, it's really gritty

01:15and certainly when the children go through the museum and they get to the platform and the adults,

01:19they're really excited to get on the train.

01:21It takes them up to the edge of Middleton Park,

01:23which is a beautiful area of open space and parkland that we've got here in Leeds.

01:28The little loco over here is Hunslet 1786, Courage, otherwise known as Sweepy.

01:34It was built in 1935, just down the road from here by Hunslet.

01:39They went to work at the Alton Brewery, who at the time was run by Courage,

01:43and it worked there until 1968 when it came here and it's been a beloved part of our fleet ever since.

01:49We're always looking to recruit new people, whether you've got skills or not.

01:52And that's actually what's really wonderful about it, because people work together,

01:56they teach each other skills that they might never have had before.

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