Wending its means round among the highest peaks within the Pennines, the Settle-Carlisle Railway is among the many best engineering feats of the Victorian age, and arguably England’s most scenic line. This yr, it’s celebrating its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, stated Duncan Craig within the Monetary Occasions – second, I felt, for a week-long break travelling up and down it to discover among the “extraordinary” mountain climbing nation it opens up, a lot of it within the Yorkshire Dales Nationwide Park.
A number of the buildings at its stations have not too long ago been transformed into vacation lets, and we stayed in a single – the reserving workplace at Kirkby Stephen. Painted within the “crimson-and-cream” livery of the outdated Midland Railway firm, it’s charming, cosy, and, after all, completely situated for hopping on and off the trains. That is “the railway line that shouldn’t have been made”, so “fiercely undulating” is the terrain it traverses for a lot of its 73-mile size.
The Midland Railway firm wished a share of the “fast-expanding” London to Scotland rail market, and gained Parliament’s approval for the road in 1866, as its rival, the London and North Western Railway, refused to share its tracks (now the West Coast Mainline). Constructed of native stone, the railway’s nice viaducts are as grand as cathedrals, and appear to rise naturally from their panorama.
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However, actually, they got here at nice value. A number of thousand navvies labored on the railway, dwelling in makeshift camps, and lots of died in accidents, or from publicity and illness within the bitterly chilly winters. The journey south from Kirkby Stephen takes you previous three majestic hills – Pen-y-ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside – to the “engineering crux and non secular core” of the railway, the Ribblehead Viaduct, with its 24 hovering arches.
There’s additionally significantly good mountain climbing round Dent, the very best station in England at 350 metres. A vacation cottage at present, the lone constructing there has an image window overlooking Dentdale – one of many nation’s best views.
