The Settle–Carlisle line (also known as the Settle and Carlisle (S&C)) is a main railway line in northern England. The route, which crosses the remote, scenic regions of the Yorkshire Dales and the North Pennines, runs between Settle Junction, on the Leeds–Morecambe line, and . The historic line was constructed in the 1870s and has several notable tunnels and viaducts such as the imposing Ribblehead.
The line is managed by Network Rail. All passenger services are operated by Northern apart from temporary diverted services (due to closures of the West Coast Main Line) and are part of the National Rail network. Stations serve towns such as Settle in North Yorkshire, Appleby-in-Westmorland in Cumbria and small rural communities along its route.
In the 1980s, British Rail planned to close the Settle–Carlisle line. This prompted a campaign to save the line by rail groups, enthusiasts, local authorities and residents along the route. In 1989, the UK government announced the line would be saved from closure. Since then, passenger numbers have grown steadily to 1.2 million in 2012. Eight formerly closed stations have been reopened and several quarries have been reconnected to the line. It remains one of the most popular railway routes in the UK for charter trains. After damage by a landslip, part of the line was closed from February 2016 to March 2017. To celebrate the reopening, the first passenger train was operated with a steam locomotive, the first scheduled mainline steam service in England for nearly half a century.
History
Background The Settle–Carlisle line (S&C) had its origins in railway politics; the expansion-minded Midland Railway company was locked in dispute with the rival London and North Western Railway (LNWR) over access rights to the latter's tracks to Scotland.
The Midland's access to Scotland was via the "Little North Western" route to Ingleton. The Ingleton branch line from Ingleton to Low Gill, where it joined the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, was under the control of the rival LNWR. Initially the routes, although physically connected at Ingleton, were not logically connected, as the LNWR and Midland could not agree on sharing the use of Ingleton station. Instead the LNWR terminated its trains at its own station at the end of Ingleton Viaduct, and Midland Railway passengers had to walk about a mile over steep gradients between the two stations in order to change into/from LNWR trains.
An agreement was reached over station access, enabling the Midland to attach through carriages to LNWR trains at Ingleton. Passengers could continue their journey north without leaving the train. The situation was not ideal, as the LNWR handled the through carriages of its rival with deliberate obstructiveness, for example attaching the coaches to slow goods trains instead of fast passenger workings.Houghton, F.W & Foster W.H (1965 Second Ed) The Story of the Settle - Carlisle Line, Advertiser Press Ltd, Huddersfield, p.16
The route through Ingleton is closed, but the major structures, Low Gill and Ingleton viaducts, remain. It was a well-engineered line suitable for express passenger running, but its potential was never realised due to the rivalry between the companies. The Midland board decided that the only solution was a separate route to Scotland. Surveying began in 1865, and in June 1866, approval was given to the Midland's bill, for which Samuel Carter was solicitor, and the (29 & 30 Vict. c. ccxxiii) became law. Soon afterwards, the Overend-Gurney banking failure sparked a financial crisis in the UK. Interest rates rose sharply, several railways went bankrupt and the Midland's board, prompted by a shareholders' revolt, began to have second thoughts about a venture whose estimated cost was £2.3 million (equivalent to £ in ). As a result, in April 1869, with no work started, the company petitioned Parliament to abandon the scheme it had earlier fought for. However Parliament, under pressure from other railways which would benefit from the scheme that would cost them nothing, refused, and construction commenced in November that year.
Construction The line was built by over 6,000 navvies, most of them Irish, who worked in remote locations, enduring harsh weather conditions. Large camps were established to house them, with many becoming complete townships with post offices and schools. They were named Inkerman, Sebastapol and Jericho. The remains of one camp – Batty Green – where over 2,000 navvies lived and worked, can be seen near Ribblehead. Scripture readers helped to counteract the effect of drunken violence in these isolated communities.
A plaque in St Leonard's Church, Chapel-le-Dale, records the workers who died, both from disease and from accidents, while building the railway. The death toll is unknown, but 80 people died at Batty Green alone in a smallpox epidemic.
A memorial stone was laid in 1997 in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Mallerstang to commemorate the 25 railway builders and their families who died during the construction of this section of the line, and who were buried there in unmarked graves.
The engineer for the project was John Crossley from Leicestershire, a veteran of other Midland schemes. The terrain traversed is among the bleakest and wildest in England, and construction was halted for months at a time due to frozen ground, snowdrifts and flooding. One contractor had to give up as a result of underestimating the terrain and the weather – Dent Head has almost four times the rainfall of London. Another long-established partnership dissolved under the strain: that of William Eckersley and John Bayliss (1826–1900), Bayliss continued the project until its completion in 1877. They were contracted to construct the section from Kirkby Thore to Petteril Bridge in Carlisle.
The line was engineered to express standards throughout – local traffic was secondary, and many stations were miles from the villages they purported to serve. The railway's summit at is at Aisgill, north of Garsdale. To keep the gradients to less than 1 in 100 (1%), a requirement for fast running using steam traction, huge engineering works were required. Even so, the terrain imposed a climb from Settle to Blea Moor, almost all of it at 1 in 100, and known to enginemen as "the long drag".
The line required 14 tunnels and 22 viaducts; the most notable is the 24-arch Ribblehead Viaduct which is high and long. The swampy ground meant that the piers had to be sunk below the peat and set in concrete in order to provide a suitable foundation. Soon after crossing the viaduct, the line enters Blea Moor tunnel, long and below the moor, before emerging onto Dent Head Viaduct. The summit at Aisgill is the highest point reached by main-line trains in England. The tunnel at Lazonby was constructed at the request of a local vicar as he did not want the railway to run past the vicarage.
Water troughs were laid between the tracks at Garsdale, enabling steam engines to take water without stopping.
The remains of the navvies' camp at Rise Hill Tunnel were investigated by Channel 4's Time Team in 2008, for a programme that was broadcast on 1 February 2009.
Operation The line opened for goods traffic in August 1875 with the first passenger trains starting in April 1876. The cost of the line was £3.6 million (equivalent to £ in ) – 50 per cent above the estimate and a colossal sum for the time.
For some time the Midland dominated the market for London-Glasgow traffic, providing more daytime trains than its rival. In 1923 the Midland and the LNWR were both merged into the new London, Midland and Scottish Railway. In the new company, the disadvantages of the Midland's route were clear – its steeper gradients and greater length meant it could not compete on speed from London to Glasgow, especially as Midland route trains had to make more stops to serve major cities in the Midlands and Yorkshire. The Midland had long competed on the extra comfort it provided for its passengers but this advantage was lost in the merged company.
After nationalisation in 1948, the pace of rundown quickened. It was regarded as a duplicate line, and control over the through London-Glasgow route was split over several regions which made it hard to plan popular through services. Mining subsidence affected speeds through the East Midlands and Yorkshire. In 1962, the Thames–Clyde Express travelling via the S&C took almost nine hours from London to Glasgow – over the West Coast Main Line the journey length was 7 hours 20 minutes.
In 1963, the Beeching Report into the restructuring of British Rail recommended the withdrawal of all passenger services from the line. Some smaller stations had closed in the 1950s. Although the Beeching recommendations were shelved, it is clear that closure of the line was planned as early as the late 1960s. Such closure is referred to in paragraph 40 of the official report into the accident involving two goods trains between Horton-in-Ribblesdale and Selside on 30 October 1968, by Lt. Colonel I.K.A. McNaughton: "... Even if the Settle and Carlisle line were planned to form part of the long term railway network of the country, it would still come fairly low in the priority list for installation of AWS; this route, however, is planned for closure within the next few years ..." In May 1970 all stations except for Settle and Appleby West were closed, and its passenger service cut to two trains a day in each direction, leaving mostly freight.
Few express passenger services continued to operate, The Waverley from London St Pancras to Edinburgh Waverley via Nottingham ended in 1968, while the Thames–Clyde Express from London to Glasgow Central via Leicester, lasted until 1975. Night sleepers from London to Glasgow continued until 1976. After that a residual service from Glasgow – cut back at Nottingham (three trains each way) – survived until May 1982.
Threat of closure During the 1970s, the S&C suffered from a lack of investment, and most freight traffic was diverted onto the electrified West Coast Main Line. The condition of many viaducts and tunnels deteriorated due to lack of investment. DalesRail began operating services to closed stations on summer weekends in 1974. These were promoted by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority to encourage ramblers.
In the early 1980s, the S&C was carrying only a handful of trains per day, and British Rail decided the cost of renewing the viaducts and tunnels would be prohibitively expensive, given the small amount of traffic carried on the line. In June 1981 a protest group, the Friends of the Settle–Carlisle Line (FoSCL), held its inaugural meeting at Settle Town Hall and campaigned against the line's closure even before it was officially announced.
In 1984, closure notices were posted at the S&C's remaining stations. However, local authorities and rail enthusiasts joined and campaigned to save the S&C, pointing out that British Rail was ignoring the S&C's potential for tourism, ignoring the need for a diversionary route to the West Coast Main Line, and failing to promote through traffic from the Midlands and Yorkshire to Scotland.
There was outrage over the closure plan: critics pointed out that this was a main line, not a small branch railway. The campaign uncovered evidence that British Rail had mounted a dirty tricks campaign against the line, exaggerating the cost of repairs (£6 million for Ribblehead Viaduct alone) and diverting traffic away from the line in order to justify its closure plans, a process referred to as closure by stealth.Towler, p.74