Going loco over steam dream rail trail

Their rolling stock track record rolls back 30 years, offering best of all worlds - exciting journeys with inclusive hotels, escorted experiences and exclusive excursions, booking flexibility as well as financial protection.

Adventures are available worldwide but, for we northern monkeys, nowhere beats God's Own County for Iron Horse homage, home as it was to 1970 screen classic The Railway Children.

Red petticoats packed, we set off to see the station that still resonates with echoes of “oh, my daddy, my daddy" homecoming tear-jerker, while also travelling further afield to coastal line, similarly staging iconic film locations from Hogsmeade to Heartbeat.

Beauty abounds along scenic routes from rolling dales and vales, through rugged moorland to spectacular coastline, coach transfers taking strain between steam locomotive engine trips, with free time afforded to enjoy delights, many and varied, of such welcome stop-offs as gentrified Harrogate, gothic Whitby, medieval York and full Brontë Haworth, all glistening gems in White Rose crown.

Where to go: Keighley and Worth Valley Railway has witnessed much evolution since industrial revolution saw it serve Heavy Woollen District's mushrooming mill trade. Five miles of track have been backdrop, not only for Jenny Agutter's Bobbie Waterbury and co, but also such small and big screen blockbusters as Peaky Blinders, The Great Train Robbery and Testament of Youth. Without coming over all trainspotter, the service today retains four signal boxes, two tunnels, two level crossings, turntable, assorted viaducts and bridges, all serving six stations.

Ingrow West station and yard accommodates not one, but two, award-winning museums that combine to tell RAIL STORY, collaborative scheme between host railway, Vintage Carriages Trust and exotically titled Bahamas Locomotive Society to develop the site progressively, giving visitors greater opportunities to understand preservation and conservation of rail heritage. Carriage Works, Engine Shed and Learning Coach offer entertainment and education with chance to climb aboard vintage carriages where film stars have sat for filming of 50-plus dramas.

Haworth is all about the Brontës. From burgers to beer, this Fairtrade Village in Worth Valley fold of the Pennines celebrates its literary status among assorted antiquarian and souvenir shops, restaurants, tea rooms and inns, including Black Bull, where brother Branwell's decline into alcoholism and opium addiction allegedly began. But his sisters are true stars, book worms making a bee line for former family home that is Parsonage Museum, grade one listed building celebrating Charlotte, Emily and Anne's prowess with the pen and lasting legacy.

Overshadowed by brooding moorland, Oxenhope boasts literally shed-load of attractions for steam buffs. White Shed and Cow Shed are equally crucial to smooth running of operations but it's Green Shed that makes an exhibition of itself. Opened in stages in 1971 and '73, the building houses locos not fit for traffic long term but in fine enough fettle to store as static exhibits undergoing restoration. What it's not, staff are at pains to point out, is a museum. Rather, working environment, as one guide stressed, "full of stuff we allow public to look round”.

North Yorkshire Moors Railway is like a living, breathing chapter of All Creatures Great and Small, among many screen shoots that also include Simply Red's 1985 breakthrough single Holding Back The Years video, also atop Whitby's 199 steps at abbey ruins, inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula, which awaits at end of 24-mile majestic trip from Pickering via Goathland and Grosmont. But, beware! If, like me, you care to hang out of carriages, breathing in nostalgic sulphur ash, you'll disembark looking sootier than circa '64 Dick van Dyke mockney sweep.

Approaching final destination buffers, reflecting through wooden framed windows on times past, I was minded of arguably our greatest poet who was never laureate, Philip Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings "as we raced across bright knots of rail, past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss came close, and it was nearly done," safe in knowledge I'll always hold dear whistle-stop memories of "this frail travelling coincidence".

Where to stay: To say Cedar Court Hotel is tree-mendous would be cringeworthy, but that won't stop me extolling virtues of four star attractive accommodation, among Ascend Collection leading locations. Overlooking 200 acres of pristine parkland, this bucolic bolthole still offers easy access to history-rich Harrogate on its doorstep. The venue's own heritage dates back to 1671, site of the area's first hotel, today offering 100 stylish rooms to meet all travellers' needs, round the clock room service and, unique in this compact spa town, extensive free parking.