"Egg-static" children were treated to some free Easter goodies at the official opening of the Helston heritage railway's second year of operation this Bank Holiday weekend.

A stream of visitors flocked to the opening, on Good Friday, with rides in the brake van from 10.15am and free Easter Eggs for the children.

A railway holiday tour operator also paid the team at Helston Railway Preservation Society a visit over the weekend to give some visitors from outside the area a taste of the historic track.

"It’s lovely to have visitors as it brings the railway to life and allows us to share with friends and total strangers the fun we have in building the railway," said Barbara Barnes, from the society.

"Good Friday was the start of our second year of being open to the public, and whilst we have been building the railway for five years we have only been operating it for one – so it’s all quite new and fresh and exciting.

"And that is exactly how the volunteers felt when at 10.15 on Good Friday morning we saw a stream of visitors heading towards the platform for their ride on our brake van - not only did we have ecstatic volunteers we also had eggstatic children when they received their free Easter Egg, there was chocolate everywhere, marvellous!

"To make it even better, Saturday brought sunshine and more people and children and more Easter Eggs made the journey to Truthall Summit and back."

Volunteers at the railway have been busy helping gear up for the start of the season over the past few weeks and although their trusty black shunter is proving a little tempremental, the team are confident that with "a mixture of kid gloves and tough love" she will hang on until the blue shunter makes it back into service.

One day, the society hope to operate a steam engine at the site and Barbara said: "a steam loco, temperamental or not would be just amazing but until then we have our superb diesels which are just the right size for us."