A PASSENGER train hauled by a steamer stopped in Lydney for the first time in 35 years on Saturday – heralding what some believe could be the start of a new tourist boom.
Around 200 passengers disembarked at the town's Junction station and then used Dean Forest Railway engines to visit the Norchard Steam Centre.
The steamer, former Southern Railways Canadian Pacific, travelled on to Newport returning to Lydney to pick up passengers for the return journey to Alton in Hampshire.
DFR spokesman John White said he hoped the visit would become the first of many.
"The charter was from the Mid Hants Railway and I confidently expect to welcome more such trips to Lydney and the Forest in the future. We may well have witnessed the beginning of a new era for visitors especially as the Dean Forest Railway is linked to the main line," said Mr White.
The DFR now has a platform at the Junction which enables visitors to transfer from main line trains to the Forest line and Mr White said he believed that at some point in the future it would be possible for main line trains to use the existing link to travel on the local line.
DFR hopes to achieve the major milestone of taking regular passenger trains into Parkend by the middle of next summer.
Major work is taking place at Tufts Bridge between Lydney and Whitecroft and other engineering tasks have to be completed to enable the dream to become a reality.
The Parkend to Lydney Junction section will enable trains to run for just over four miles and was the aim of the railway society when it was formed at a meeting in the Swan Hotel, Cinderford, in 1970.