Steam into Summer

A nostalgic Look at the Dart Valley Railway in South Devon back in 1979. Now one of the country's most successful steam railways, it carries thousands of visitors each year from Buckfastleigh to Totnes, seven miles along one of Britain's most beautiful valleys.

The Dart Valley Railway was closed in the late 1950s as part of Dr Beeching's reorganisation of Britain's railway network, but it reopened in 1968 as a volunteer-run association to provide a commercially viable steam passenger service between Buckfastleigh and Totnes. This programme hears from some of those volunteers to find out why they're so determined to preserve their own treasures from the age of steam.

The poem recited in the middle of this programme ('Faster than faeries, faster than witches...') is 'From a Railway Carriage' by Robert Louis Stevenson.

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