The old diesel and its train of 50 and 60-year-old coaches grunts and grinds, screeches and rattles along frail, rust-red track that appears to be sinking back into the marshes across which it was laid last century. Bullrushes lean eagerly towards us as we pass, as if about to welcome us into the duckweed-green pools beside the line. Red mud glistens everywhere.

The Salem and Hillsborough Railway was never very successful during its working life. It pretty well always made a loss, and no wonder, for it linked a series of small agricultural and logging communities and one or two small mines.

Its rebirth as a tourist line hasn't been without troubles too. A few years ago the train shed burnt to the ground, incinerating coaches and engines as well as irreplaceable displays. But the enthusiasts have kept it running, and most week-ends in the summer a couple of trains travel the five miles between Hillsborough and Salem and back.

There's even a steam locomotive (ex-CN MLW 4-6-0 No. 1009, built 1912), though not pulling our train... (We were pulled by ex CN No. 1754 built in 1959).

It is worth the ride, which moves from open marshland to sun-dappled woodland and back. You get a running commentary from an old chap, and girls try to sell you bags of crisps and cans of pop...