Tickets TO RIDE

To mark the bicentenary of the first public passenger steam railway, Tom Chesshyre picks his top British train trips

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With the pioneering train engineer George Stephenson at the controls of Locomotion No 1, carriages packed with passengers puffed down the 26-mile line on the Stockton and Darlington Railway 200 years ago this year. It was the first such public ride, sparking the beginning of a train boom. Today, Britain has around 10,000 miles of tracks. Here are four of my favourite journeys.

Welsh wonder train

Designed to transport slate from hilltop quarries to the ships that exported it across the Irish Sea, the railway between Blaenau Ffestiniog and Porthmadog in Gwynedd covers 13½ miles on narrow gauge tracks. It was opened in 1836. For 27 years, gravity was used to roll loads down and horses to pull wagons up, before steam trains were introduced.

The line closed in 1946 due to a drop in slate demand but, after a lengthy hiatus, rail enthusiasts stepped in and the first trains started running again on a small part of it in 1955, with the whole line finally reopening in 1982.