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’.
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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.