AS a teenage railway enthusiast, the author clocked up hundreds of miles per day travelling on a variety of classic diesel trains: in half-term week in October 1979 he covered just under 3,000 miles.
He and other schoolboys could afford this thanks to British Rail’s Northumbrian Ranger ticket. At that time, the princely sum of £2.60 bought seven days of unlimited travel anywhere on the East Coast main line between Berwick and York, as well as on the Tyne Valley line to Carlisle. This is one person’s nostalgic look back at those halcyon days of affordable rail travel.