DROVES of school kids have returned to the classroom, near empty carriages trundle down the track and September sun manages to shine.

Oyster catchers cry out a secret message as yet another train passes their estuary sanctuary.

Soon the winter and peace will set in.

For Trevor Stockton the long months ahead spell serious work.

While engines rest, he and his band of volunteers take to the tracks.

A season's wear and tear must be sorted.

He has worked here for 27 years, and at 46 says this is where his working days will end.

"No one ever leaves.

Even when they retire, they come back and work for nothing.

It's that sort of place, special, very special.

"I was second man on the bacon slicer at Lancaster Co-op.

I lasted two years, it wasn't right.

My family had been in railways for four generations.

My life's dream was to work here."

Trevor first set eyes on La'al Ratty as a six-year-old when his dad took the wide-eyed incredulous lad on board a wooden open carriage and took him to heaven.

"I started as a volunteer as soon as I could.

Dad was one too.

I thought all my birthdays had come at once when I got a job here, aged 19."

The seven-mile journey takes 40 minutes one way.

Sometimes Trevor drives it three times a day.

"Never are two trips alike.

The weather, the light, the seasons, the smells and sounds are always different.

Every single one has something of its own."

A steady stream of "daft, bloody questions" is patiently answered.

"No," he smiles, sweetly, "this train does not go all the way to Whitehaven."

Home is at the end of the line, a railway house at Boot, with a front garden leading down to the track.

"We've got central heating now and water which is easy to heat.

I used to take a bar of soap down to the river and wash down there in the summer.

We've moved away from a 60-hour week too."

Getting dirty is part of the attraction.

Trevor's volunteers range from a Yorkshire surgeon to senior civil servant.

"People like getting their hands dirty.

It's something basic in us."

One of Trevor's claims to fame was travelling to Japan, to give instruction on the intricacies of two steam engines, built in the R & ER's Ravenglass sheds and shipped east.

Northern Rock II and Cumbria are top attractions in the Rainbow Park at Shunzen-ji.

"When I first got to drive, it was a wonderful thing," grins Trevor.

Twenty seven years down the line, the thrill is still there and his engine gleams from more hours polishing then the driver cares to recall.

"Some might say I'm easily pleased.

But there can be nothing better than this," he proclaims, pulling into Dalegarth, his favourite bit, home and mountain base.

"Tell me, have you ever seen anything finer?"