In the previous edition, RVR 141, I looked back at what RVR had achieved over 30 years regarding our Aims and Objectives as enshrined in our Constitution. This included a history, and the development, of the DalesRail service through the Ribble Valley which even predated RVR.

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Following its demise during the pandemic due to a variety of reasons, Northern Railway, Network Rail, the Local Authorities, Community Rail Lancashire, our colleagues on the Settle Carlisle section and RVR worked together to produce a formula which was accepted by the Department for Transport allowing a replacement Yorkshire Dales Explorer to operate each Saturday throughout the year. Having completed its first year at the beginning of June it has proved to be popular.

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One, perhaps underestimated, cause of this success, is the fact that the former DalesRail service only took passengers northwards in a morning and back in the evening. No originating travel southbound from S&C stations or Hellifield was therefore possible. The new Explorer service provides morning and evening trains in both directions as far as Ribblehead, rather than Carlisle, but is provided with “connections” to the S&C route trains following in the northwards direction in the morning and preceding the Explorer train in the evening, so that an afternoon in Carlisle is still possible, by changing trains at Hellifield, Settle, Horton-in-Ribblesdale or Ribblehead. This has opened up a multitude of possibilities for southbound travel with passengers from the Dales, Hellifield and even Carlisle, Scotland, Leeds and Bradford (the latter two by changing trains at Hellifield), using the service to travel to Clitheroe, Blackburn, Bolton and even Manchester. There are now quite frequent repeat passengers from Appleby, with others driving over to Ribblehead from Ingleton, as well as from Settle and Hellifield. The over four hours they have in Clitheroe allows for an afternoon out on a Saturday in a busy town, offering many restaurants, bars and shopping opportunities. Organised groups of ladies, gentlemen, and also families do this. Some groups of young people from the Dales stations even travel into Clitheroe on the evening train even though there is no return service. They then club-together for a taxi for the return, much later at night.