IRONICALLY, it was the dearth of paying customers that caused British Railways, as the monolithic national organisation was then known, to call it a day and put up the shutters at the ticket offices in the first place. The classic case, one supposes, of more sheep than people.

Half a century later the fractious atmosphere surrounding rail privatisation is forgotten as, even at £95 for a 12-mile return journey between Leeming Bar and Leyburn, they scramble for a seat on the first timetabled passenger train in Wensleydale since 1954.

Wensleydale Railway is obviously bargaining on there being more people than sheep this time around as it launches a unique enterprise which is going to stand or fall on market research and the way in which it is promoted.

Privatisation probably has some positive points after all, because it could be argued that the company has achieved with Network Rail what might have been almost impossible when the industry was nationalised. Someone has obviously listened and has at least given the thing a chance.

A sense of history, both recent and more distant, is immediately evident as travellers and onlookers converge on the 155-year-old Leeming Bar station for the big day.

Leases Road gets distinctly busier as two classic road coaches, of the type which would still have been running in 1954, ferry passengers to and from the park and ride area half a mile away at The Lodge at Leeming Bar.

And passenger services restart exactly as the daily limestone train ended almost 11 years ago, with a fusillade of exploding detonators under the wheels. On that December day in 1992, though, the rain was interminable. Today, appropriately, the sun is shining.

The 42-year-old diesel multiple unit sets off the warning devices like a series of firecrackers as it clatters into Leeming Bar station to pick up its first passengers, greeted by the Harriers New Orleans Jazzmen.

We have been promised a peal on the bell of the nearby St Augustine's Church but, unlike the jazzmen, it is probably drowned out by the incessant noise of Tornado jets on their daily flights from RAF Leeming.

The event has attracted hordes of regional and national television and radio reporters, one of whom wanders around talking to himself as he tries to compress so much material into that night's bulletin.

Passengers have come from all over the country, and other parts of the world, but 77-year-old Derick Appleton, from Thirsk, has more reason than most to be travelling.

He was the 27-year-old fireman on the last scheduled passenger train to cover the 40 miles between Northallerton and Garsdale on April 24, 1954. When the Wensleydale services ended he refused a move to Northumberland and left the railways. Mr Appleton, sharing a seat with his wife, Joyce, says: "We decided to come along for old time's sake to see what was happening. I regret leaving the railways, but Beeching did for the job.

"Bedale was always a lovely station when Tom Plummer was the stationmaster and it was a beautiful ride up to Garsdale, winter and summer.

"Today the track is in good nick and it is quite a comfortable ride. Wensleydale Railway must have had a lot of work and I hope they make as good a success of it as the North York Moors Railway. They will have had a lot of expense and now it wants patronising."

But Mr Appleton adds: "I think it will be difficult to get back into Northallerton and a link to Garsdale again is going to cost a lot of money."

The youngest passenger is one-year-old Gemma Henderson, brought along with her three-year-old sister, Olivia, by her parents, Caroline and Carl, from Richmond. It is the youngsters' first train trip. Mr Henderson, a design engineer, is undertaking a feasibility study for the Department of Trade and Industry on developing a bus for transfer to rail and has been offered the use of the 22-mile line to work on his ideas.

Here is the unfailingly courteous Barry Reed, retired businessman from Crakehall, one of the first to buy track certificates when the Wensleydale Railway Association hoped to acquire the mothballed 22-mile line ten years ago.

Mr Reed, making his first trip along the line, hopes to see trains stopping at Crakehall before very long and, like others, stresses the importance of reinstating the main line link at Northallerton.

Above all it is a friendly and informal train. One young girl with learning difficulties is not travelling but cannot get enough pictures of guard Barry Glenn, from York, blowing his whistle. Nothing is too much trouble for him. He smiles and says: "You want me again?"

Mr Glenn used to work for British Rail at York but left when privatisation dawned because he did not like the way things were going, customer care beginning to suffer in his eyes. Now he trains guards for Wensleydale Railway.

The normal job of driver Roger Sonley, who patiently poses for dozens of media pictures, is as a professional with the EWS freight company at Thornaby. Only three days earlier he had taken an Army train over the line. Mr Sonley, who has agreed to help Wensleydale Railway in a voluntary capacity, appears to welcome the change of pace: "On the main line you've got signals and other things to think about and some drivers want to get there and back before they've even started."

Politicians like Richmond MP William Hague and David Bowe, who represents Yorkshire and the Humber in the European Parliament, are on hand, but as the train pulls out it will be the ordinary passenger who will make or break this ambitious project.

David and Barbara Woods live in Edinburgh but have decided to make the trip while staying in Littondale. Mr Woods says: "We should all be trying to solve transport problems. The important thing is to make sure that key towns are linked and I hope this will be used by locals as well as tourists."

As the train progresses, causing us temporarily to lose our bearings because the view is so unfamiliar, Wensleydale Railway assures us that the needs of the disabled are being addressed. We are told that the ageing train can take a wheelchair as well as bicycles in the guard's van, which has windows.

The return trip takes just short of two hours, the riding quality being better than expected, and not one mobile phone has been heard. We could have been back in 1954