Mike Laycock took his excited daughter and niece on the 'Harry Potter' line

When my niece Heather and her family came to stay recently, I asked what she would most like to do. "Go on a train, please," came the immediate reply.

Heather is a bit of steam buff. But she is also, like most 11 year olds, mad on Harry Potter. So when I told her she could not only go on one of England's finest steam railways, but also the one featured in the first Harry Potter film, she was in railway heaven. My daughter Gabrielle was pretty excited too.

We hit upon one of the finest days of the sunny spring for our journey, with not a cloud to be seen as we parked near Pickering Castle (free parking all day, nice view of the castle ruins, and only five minutes walk from the station).

There was plenty of room on the first North Yorkshire Moors Railway train of the day out of Pickering, and we managed to get one of those old-fashioned compartments all to ourselves, and right next to the engine as well. We chatted to the friendly guard, who spoke of the line's endless appearances in film and TV dramas. It is regularly seen in Heartbeat, and also YTV's spin-off programme The Royal; it is to feature in a TV drama about a wartime wedding later this year; and the film Possession, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, was partly filmed on it. The guard confirmed that the scenes when Harry himself met Hermione on a train were filmed in a North Yorkshire Moors Railway carriage. In fact, it could have have been the one we were now sitting in...

Our journey was made more complicated by recent grassfire problems on the moors, following the dry spring, although by the time you read this, this week's rainfall should have eased that particular headache. Many of the fires earlier this month were caused by sparks and cinders from the steam trains. Because of this, the steam engine could take us only as far as Levisham. It then had to be shunted off, and a diesel hitched up to pull us to Goathland. Less romantic and picturesque, and also time-consuming, but clearly necessary, as witnessed by the numerous patches of burnt embankment we saw along our journey.

Heather's family appreciated the beautiful Moors countryside which makes this one of the country's most scenic railway journeys.

At Goathland, we walked straight from the Harry Potter set into Aidensfield, the nostalgic land of bobbies and rural rogues where the Sixties and its pop music never ends. Look, I said, there's the funeral directors and garage business. And there's the pub, and the Post Office where Blaketon went to be sub-postmaster after retiring as the local sergeant.

We had a good pub lunch in the beer garden at the Goathland Hotel, aka the Aidensfield Arms, and then went for a stroll and a paddle in the nearby river before taking the mid-afternoon train back to Pickering.

So, I asked Heather, have you enjoyed it? "Yes, it was really good," she said, appreciatively. A wizard day out, really.

Fact file

North Yorkshire Moors Railway,

Pickering.

For information, call 01751 472508. For talking timetable, call 01751 473535.

Updated: 09:03 Saturday, April 26, 2003