THE delightful Esk Valley Railway is under threat again. What this newspaper headlined as “struggling stations”

along the line face possible service cuts. Since that service amounts to just four trains daily each way – plus one midsummer late evening extra – any cut looks more likely to sever the bone rather than merely reach it.

With no fewer than ten of the line’s 16 stations between Middlesbrough and Whitby identified as at risk, the line would surely have no future if its meagre “full” service was confined to the remaining handful of stations along the 35-mile route. Farewell Esk Valley Line. What a tragedy.

Five or six years ago, waiting for an Esk Valley train at Grosmont, my wife and I spoke with another traveller.

An employee of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, he said: “This line is more scenic than the Moors Railway, you know.”

I replied: “You don’t need to tell us. We’ve been using this line and singing its praises since the 1950s.” My wife recalled how I once took with me a wash leather, to clean our carriage window – the better to enjoy the lovely views.

These come chiefly as the line crosses and re-crosses the Esk and her tributaries – 23 times I think – and visits the little moorland stations.

Snug in their sandstone villages, these give glimpses of church towers and russet pantiles among the trees. It’s a perfect picture of branch-line England.

But a decade or so ago journeys on the Esk Valley Line were a nightmare. On badly- worn rails, the trains screeched round every bend. Since then new track has been laid and an astonishing £2.1m spent on renewing bridges. A group of “friends” has blossomed into the Esk Valley Railway Development Company, dedicated to promoting the line.

But it has never recovered from devastating cutbacks and timetable changes imposed by British Rail. Formerly the line brought in commuters to Middlesbrough.

The town’s coroner, Arthur Knott, commuted from Egton Bridge. Tom Salmon, saviour of the Moors Railway, commuted from Ruswarp. Today, the first train into Middlesbrough doesn’t arrive until 10.17am.

For shopping trips the service is equally useless. There’s no train back from Middlesbrough between about 2pm and 5.40pm. A shopping visit to Whitby must be squeezed into 15 minutes or stretched to four hours.

Though an axed Sunday service has been restored, a 10.28am departure from Middlesbrough is late for a family intending to spend a day in Whitby.

But most sad is that the message that here is one of England’s most enchanting railways has never taken off. Even the Moors Railway, which now runs some trains up the Esk Valley, tempts would-be passengers not with the line’s beauty or walking opportunities but with the prospect of travelling faster by steam than is allowed on the NYMR.

The line survived Beeching because it was considered a winter lifeline for Esk Valley communities and vital as school transport.

Neither applies now. But a railway that links a large town with arguably a day-out destination, via a string of pretty villages in a national park, ought to have a vibrant future. Perish the defeatist talk of cuts.