Travelling through Bronte country
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orget the usual range of cardboard sandwiches and other ‘delicious snacks’ you get offered on the train nowadays. Today you’re travelling through the heart of Bronte country on the White Rose Pullman, courtesy of Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, and there’s a six-course meal about to be served in the 1930s dining carriage.
White clouds of smoke and steam billow out of the 80-year-old chimney, and every so often conversation is interrupted as the Pullman’s piercing whistle echoes off the West Yorkshire hillsides.
Look out of the window in between bites and you’ll pass by Oakworth (where they filmed The Railway Children) and Damems – Britain’s smallest train station. And instead of the typical glum-faced commuters waiting on the platforms, you’re more likely to see brightly coloured kingfishers, herons and dippers flitting about in the bushes.
Meanwhile, when it comes to liquid refreshment, forget the cups of tea-flavoured water you’re used to; there’s locally brewed ale, drawn from a cask into a specially-made drum so it remains drinkable – even on a moving train. Now that’s what we call proper on-board refreshments.