Picturesque decay: The Derwent Valley Light Railway in the Sixties

Opened in 1912 and 1913, the Derwent Valley Light Railway somehow escaped both Grouping in 1923 and nationalisation in 1948.

By the time I was a student in York, it ran from its own Layerthorpe station in the city to Dunnington, a distance of four miles. The line was linked to the wider system at its York end by British Rail's Foss Islands Branch.

When this footage was taken in the Sixties, the line ran further than Dunnington, reaching Cliffe Common and the BR line from Driffield to Selby. When that line closed in 1964, the process of cutting back the DVLR began. It closed altogether in the autumn of 1981.

I love the picturesque decay here - I recall the DVLR I knew as being better maintained.

A short stretch of the line was reopened in 1993 as part of the Yorkshire Museum of Farming.