TODAY we put up with late trains and see uneconomic bus routes facing the axe but 60 years ago it was a whole railway branch line which saw its last passengers.

On October 4 in 1958 the last scheduled train with paying customers travelled along the nine-and-a-half-mile line from Foxfield to Coniston.

Its fate featured in a talk to Coniston Local History Group by the Mail's nostalgia writer Bill Myers

Since the closure, the stations at Broughton, Woodland and Torver became houses, while Coniston was eventually transformed into a housing and industrial estate.

Had the line survived, it could have been a major tourist attraction to rival Haverthwaite, or the Ravenglass and Eskdale miniature railway.

A section of the track bed is now a scenic track and cycleway.

The last passenger service to for Coniston was reported in the Mail

It noted: “The 99-year-old ‘Coniston Flyer’ reached the end of-the-line officially on Saturday to a salvo of railway detonators and a modified chorus of a modern dance tune.

“A hundred or more passengers made the last sentimental journey through the lovely Lakeland valley – a record send-off for the train that most of them had known all their lives.”

It was pulled by a Class 2 passenger engine, number 41217, and was five minutes late.

The last to jump aboard was Leeds University student Mr J Mansergh, 21, of Broadway, Bootle.

Other passengers included six Coniston girls – Pauline Weiss (13), Susan Belton (12), Margaret Tarr (12), Jean Coward (11) and Jean Usher (12)

The sang a version of The Last Train to San Fernando with the words: ‘This is the last train to Coniston. If you miss this one you’ll never get another one.’

The last train was greeted at Coniston by stationmaster, Mr J Lawrence, and a few villagers.

Among them was Mrs M.C Pearson, aged 78, of Dixon Ground Cottage, Coniston.

She said: ‘It was only 50 years ago when my husband and I and my nieces and neighbours’ children used to walk down to Torver for an outing and then ride back to Coniston for two-and-a-half pennies’.