RECOGNISE this, anyone? Well, it’s a railway yard, obviously. An offshoot of the old carriageworks behind York railway station, perhaps?

No, actually. This shows the railway yard of the Derwent Valley Light Railway (DVLR) in the 1930s. Today, the DVLR runs outings along a short stretch of line just outside York on Sundays and bank holidays. But when it first opened, in two stages in 1912 and 1913, it was very much a working railway, carrying freight (and later passengers) between Layerthorpe and Cliffe Common near Selby. The line earned the nickname The Blackberry Line from the days when it used to transport blackberries to markets in York and Yorkshire.

The line, which was never nationalised, ran until 1964: but from then to 1981 gradually closed in sections. In its final years, up to 1981, it was used to run passenger steam trains from Layerthorpe to Dunnington - the only part of the line still open.

In the 1990s a small preservation group was set up and managed to rebuild about 3/4 of a mile of track between Murton and York, which is now run as a heritage railway.

Stephen Lewis