Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 7 - Settle to Garsdale - full transcript
In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.
His name was George Bradshaw
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making four long journeys across the length
and breadth of the country to see
what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.
I'm embarked on a railway journey
from Northern England to Lowland Scotland
using a guidebook that's 150 years old.
But today I'm making a detour
along a railway line
that wasn't even built
when this book was published.
The Settle to Carlisle railway is thought to be
one of the most scenic in Britain
and I feel a very strong personal connection
with it.
When I last visited this part of the world,
British Rail had asked permission
to close the line.
I was the Minister of Transport
and the Government had to decide
whether to approve the closure.
On my journey today,
I'll be finding out what's happened to it
since I convinced Margaret Thatcher to save it.
You know, of all the things I did,
it's the one that I can still point at and say,
“Look, that made this difference.“
I'll be discovering how building the route
claimed so many lives.
Of all the chapels along the line,
this, sadly, has got the most number of deaths.
And I 7! be getting the thrill of a lifetime.
This is a fantastic sight
as the steam engine begins to go
over the Ribblehead Viaduct.
You'll never see another sight
like this on a railway in Britain.
All this week,
I'm travelling north from Preston to Scotland.
Along the way, I 7! be following
Bradshaw's Guide to the Lake District
before heading up to Glasgow
on the first railway route to cross the border,
and then on to my final destination, Kirkcaldy.
On today's journey, I'm heading
inland from Morecambe Bay to Settle,
to take the historic Midland railway
line to Ribblehead and Garsdale.
I haven't travelled the Settle to Carlisle
for 20 years.
The reason it's so special is that it is
a piece of magnificent railway architecture.
It goes through the most stunning countryside
and has some of the most remarkable viaducts.
You don't have to be a railway
enthusiast to be blown away.
Opened in 1876, it's 72 miles long,
with tiny stations in some of
the most rugged countryside in Britain.
And my first stop today is at the southern
gateway to the tine, Settle.
Settle Station is looking magnificent.
It's great to be back.
And I am back to reminisce
about events 20 years ago.
This market town was the headquarters
for the battle to save the Settle to Carlisle line.
I've come to the Council Chamber
to meet two very determined people.
The formidable campaign was started here
by Peter Shore and Mark Rand.
Peter, good to see you again.
- How are you?
- Very well, thank you.
Hello, Mark.
When did you first hear that
there was an official move to close the line?
In 1983, so we had two years
to build up our membership
and staff to build a case
before the official announcement.
Tn the early 19803,
the tine carried just a few trains each day.
Passenger numbers were low,
intermediate stations had closed
and the route was losing money.
The line was failing apart and British Rail
argued that it would cost too much to repair.
Its request to close it caused a storm of protest
We were very determined
that one of the things that we should do,
as well as shouting from the rooftops,
was to increase passengers
and thereby increase revenue which would
have some effect in Whitehall, we hoped.
MICHAEL: But the really critical thing you did
was to get more people to use the railway.
I remember the summer I had to make
the decision, 300,000 people used the railway,
so then it was possible
to argue that it had revived
and was going to be an economic proposition.
The campaign raged for six years,
generating huge publicity for the line.
As a result, ever more people began to use it,
strengthening the case for keeping it open.
And it was my job
to get the Prime Minister onside.
I did feel quite emotional about it
because I felt emotional about a line
which is so important in our heritage.
By the way, I thought Margaret Thatcher would
understand that argument, too, you know?
Of course, she was the Iron Lady
with the handbag, balancing the books,
but she really cared about British history, too,
so I thought I had a line in there, as well.
- Was that the case?
- Oh, yeah.
One of the things that you required...
You actually wrote to us on 11 April 1989,
do you remember signing that?
This was a really stressful decision for me,
so I remember it pretty well.
“You'll be pleased to hear
the Secretary of State is today announcing
he's refusing consent for British Rail
to close the Settle to Carlisle railway line.“
- That's great.
- They flew the flags in Settle that day.
I think I drafted this sentence myself.
“I look to the Friends Of The Settle
To Carlisle Line Association
to cooperate vigorously in
supporting and promoting the line
as you have promised.“
- And I hope we can say we've kept our promise.
- You have!
Since being saved,
the line is being used by even larger numbers
of people, making it profitable again.
You mentioned a figure of 300,000 passengers.
It's now something like 750,000 a year
and rising.
And, of course, that's only the start of it
because the amount of freight
that uses the line is absolutely tremendous,
anything up to 40 heavy freight trains
24 hours a day,
so it's an absolutely remarkable
change of fortune for the line.
I read somewhere that you had said,
and perhaps you were misquoted,
as saying that the saving of
the Settle to Carlisle railway line
was the best thing you did in politics.
No, I did say that.
Somebody said,
"What's your greatest achievement in politics?"
I said, “Saving the Settle to Carlisle railway."
And, of course, the interviewer said,
"What? Never even heard of that! What?“
But it is because, you know,
of all the things I did,
it's the one that I can still point at and say,
“Look, that made this difference.“
I'm heading off on the next part of my journey,
ten miles along the line to Ribblehead.
I'm so pleased to see the route thriving.
It's thronged with tourists who help
to generate the income that pays for the tine.
So, the Settle to Carlisle railway,
have you worked on it long?
- About 18 months.
- How do you enjoy it?
It's very good. It's lovely. It's a lovely place to be.
Do you still take in the scenery
or is it all nothing to you now?
- It's always breathtaking.
- Are you pleased the line was saved?
Yes. Well, aren't we all?
- A really important bit of railway heritage.
- Definitely, yeah, definitely.
I mean, such a lot of people rely
on it as well, you know?
So it would have been a terrible shame.
So, yeah, there's a lot...
A lot of nice things to see. It's always a pleasure.
And everybody just loves it.
I've always been a big fan of yours
when you were a minister
when we were trying to save this line.
- Oh, thank you.
- My father worked on this line.
It's an amazing engineering achievement,
this line.
- Absolutely so, yes.
- I'm very, very pleased it got saved.
Thank you very much for what you said.
This railway is valued,
both for what it is today and for the ambition
of those Victorian engineers.
When you look out at this terrain,
you wonder how they could have ever dreamt
of building a railway line through it
particularly because, apart from steam engines,
they had very little machinery.
So the boring of the tunnels,
the building of the viaduct, had to be done
by vast numbers of navvies
working in very difficult conditions
with a very heavy death toll.
It must have seemed madness to build a railway
straight across the weather-beaten
Yorkshire Dales.
But the Midland Railway Company
wanted a high-speed link to Scotland
to compete with its rivals
and desperate needs generate heroic solutions.
6,000 men built 14 tunnels
and no fewer than 20 viaducts,
including one of the longest in Britain,
at Ribblehead.
An unusual station, Ribblehead,
because the two platforms are separated
by quite a distance,
but just beyond that platform
is just the top of the Ribblehead Viaduct.
You get no impression from here
of how very tall it is.
You can just see the tops of the arches
on this very glowering day.
It took four years and a third of the workforce
to build the viaduct
It's one of the Victorians'
greatest achievements.
As I come round this last brow,
I get my first full view of the Ribblehead Viaduct
for 20 years.
24 magnificent arches spanning the valley.
And even from here
it's difficult to get the sense of scale
because the highest of these arches,
I know, is 100 feet tall
and even though I'm almost, it seems,
within touching distance of it,
it's difficult to appreciate the vastness of this,
and to think that just hundreds of men,
hundreds of men had to pile
these immense blocks on top of each other
to create that incredible, beautiful structure.
By the 19803, this Victorian feat of engineering
was in danger of falling down.
The thing completely dwarfs him!
He looks... He looks like a speck.
- Hi, Tony!
- Hello.
Long time no see!
20 years, nearly.
Tony Feschini was the man sent to inspect it.
Now, when I met you,
you were a British Rail engineer.
Yes.
And we were being told that this viaduct needed
seven or nine million pounds spending on it,
in those days.
But you had a different view, didn't you?
Well, I was fortunate enough to be allowed
to do a trial repair here
which allowed me to understand fully
the important parts of the structure.
And what did you find?
I found that it would cost
between 2.75 and 3.25 million.
- And why?
- And we achieved it in the end.
With the cost of repair revised down
to a third of previous estimates,
the case for closure weakened
and rebuilding began.
So, as you began to research it,
were you impressed by
what the Victorians had done?
Absolutely. The first thing that catches you
here is the weather.
And we're pretty well clad today
even though it's...
it's... we're getting wet.
I could imagine people living
on this moor throughout the year -
in winter it will be pretty daunting.
It's bad enough living here in summer.
What kind of difficulty
would it have been building this?
Oh, tremendous difficulty.
If you can imagine the site in the 18703,
the whole of the area would be wild countryside.
To come here and set up a site,
to build a structure of this size
and magnitude in an area like this
would have been a formidable task in any age.
Many of the navvies who built the viaduct
came here with their families.
Shantytowns appeared all along
the route to house thousands of people
working through the gates and snow
to build the line by hand for years on end.
It was backbreaking work.
They're pretty big blocks of stone, aren't they?
Extremely big blocks, son of two cubic metres.
They're massive.
It's built in groups of six arches for safety.
Every sixth pier is a wider pier.
That gives stability to the structure.
If you lost one arch you could lose six,
but no more.
- But no more.
- It would be better than 24.
Even with modern machinery,
Tony still faced a huge challenge
to restore the viaduct.
So, tell me this,
if you've got to take a block of stone out
and replace it, how on earth do you do that?
We used, like, a mining technique.
What you have to do is...
A man will start to nibble away the stone
bit by bit,
but you work in and prop it,
prop the ones above from the one below
and carefully work your way in
so you don't disturb the ones above you.
One thing I didn't want to be
was the man who demolished
Ribblehead Viaduct while I was working here.
Are you still inspired by it?
I am. It's a super structure, really.
It is truly magnificent.
Remarkably, it's still possible to find
descendants of those hard-working navvies.
James Rickson's family helped
to build the line 140 years ago.
I'm taking the 7.20,
so I've got quite a long time, yet.
- Can I buy you a drink?
- Thank you.
- What will you have?
- Haifa bitter, please, Michael.
Two halves of bitter, please.
Thank you very much.
They tell me you're the great-grandson
of one of the people who built the viaduct?
My great-great-grandfather was Robert Rickson
and he was the manager of
what was called the Sebastopol Brickworks.
We've checked the censuses for 1871
and, believe it or not,
there were 14 members of his family
up here working on the railway
in various jobs, ranging from
adults working as pure navvies,
to being in a managerial
position and just children.
Out of all the family members
who worked here, did they all survive?
No, they didn't all survive.
There was a severe smallpox outbreak
in the hutments, in the encampments in 1871,
and three of the five children
that had come up with the family
died in that epidemic
within the space of six weeks.
- How dreadful.
- Yes, it was not good news for the family.
And those children were all buried in the little
chapel down the road at Chapel-le-Dale.
The railway work camps were plagued
by repeated outbreaks of smallpox,
starvation and violence, leading to many deaths.
You can get an idea of the dreadful to“
at the chapel closest to the viaduct.
And this is a lovely little church.
It's the parish church of
St Leonard's, Chapel-le-Dale,
very historic, dates back to the 15th century,
and it helps to tell the very terrible story
of the building of the Settle to Carlisle railway.
- Gerald, good morning.
- Good morning.
I'm Michael.
Historian Gerald Tyler has pieced together
what happened all those years ago.
The importance of the chapel is
that of all the chapels along the line,
this, unfortunately, sadly,
has got the most number of deaths.
There were something like,
between 1870 and 1875, 201 deaths.
Now, some of those were, in fact,
obviously the navvies themselves
who suffered the most appalling accidents.
And, of course,
because there were so many families,
then there was a shantytown settlement.
I mean, there's one report
of the health doctor coming round
and being appalled by what he saw,
that there was overcrowding in the huts.
There were three rooms
in these standard huts
and you might have a family with,
say, half a dozen children
and then they take in lodgers
for another eight single men.
- That must mean there was disease rampant.
- There was, indeed.
Of the 200 or so that died
in that particular period,
110 of those were children
under the age of 13.
So many people lost their lives here
that the railway company paid for
the graveyard to be extended.
But even that wasn't enough.
Down there, there are dozens of bodies
of people who lie in unmarked graves.
- Under all this bracken?
- Yeah, that's right.
There appears to be one particular mound that
suggests there may have been a mass grave.
- It's very moving actually, isn't it? Very moving.
- It is. It is indeed.
With that dark history playing on my mind,
my emotional attachment to this railway
is strengthened further as I move on to Dent.
Even when the railway was completed,
the job still continued
because in some of the worst weather in Britain,
the line had to be kept open,
a particular problem as we approach Dent,
the highest railway station in England.
Maintaining the line proved
almost as difficult as building it.
15 men lived up here in the most
isolated conditions all winter
to keep the line free of snow.
That's where I'm staying.
Workers were packed like sardines into
these small snow huts for six weeks at a lime.
Hello!
The weather at the moment is grim.
I just have to imagine how much worse
it would be if instead of rain, this was snow.
I'm going to live for one night
as a railway worker would have lived
at the end of the 19th century
ready to go out and clear the snow
from the railway line.
Ha!
I don't think so!
It's been beautifully, luxuriously convened.
And it's warm!
The snow huts and nearby station house
have been turned into luxury accommodation
for tourists by owner, Robin Hughes.
It's just one of the businesses springing up
as a result of the railway.
It's fantastic, every detail of the station
has been beautifully preserved...
...but Robin's made it into a house.
- Morning, Robin.
- Michael, good morning.
Wow! What a beautiful place!
After all the publicity in the 1980s,
tourists started to flood in.
There were more frequent trains
and the smaller stations reopened,
including Dent.
Although you've bought this building,
the station is still functioning
and has a waiting room?
It's still an operational railway station.
Being the highest mainline station in England,
it's quite appealing.
It's in the middle of nowhere,
but you can get here,
there are five trains that go from here
each day to Leeds or Carlisle,
so it's quite operational.
I imagine the railway line is pretty
important for the local economy.
Yeah, very much so.
Dent village is four miles from this station,
but this morning at about 10.15
both platforms were fairly busy
with people going either north or south
for a day's shopping
or exploring the area and, yes, it is,
it's a very important link for the community here
and for communities up and down the line.
Because it's a real issue, isn't it,
how very remote villages survive?
But here you seem to have found the answer.
Yeah, we try and engage a range
of local people to run the station.
I've got a cleaner, housekeeper,
we provide Dent ale for people who come,
a food hamper, as well.
So there is a lot of enterprise in the Dale
and we try and use as much
of that in our offering as we can.
The tine has kept the nearby village of Dent
on the map.
There are companies hiring bikes
to day trippers,
a brewery and a busy blacksmith.
- Hello.
- Hello, hello.
Lucy Sands Clark's skills were used
in the conversion of the station
and she's kept in business by
thousands of summer visitors to Dent.
And how is village life now?
Is it vibrant, do you see it having a future?
I really hope it will.
I think this is a lovely village
in that it still retains a lot of its traditional ways
and a lot of the farming families
have been here for generations.
At times of the year it's still very busy
and we've just had the Dent Dale Show.
Lots of people come to that and
over the summer we get a lot of campers
and there are always walkers through here
because it's on the Dales Way.
But it is really hard to afford property here
because obviously when somewhere
is very picturesque,
property prices are driven up
by people wanting second homes.
Without the railway,
specialist workshops like Lucy's
would be cut off from passing trade.
The line sustains the village's heritage.
You think this smithy is, how old?
Well, I think from what I understand,
it's certainly on the deeds in 1640
as being a blacksmith shop on this spot.
It's time for me to leave Dent,
but before I continue north to Scotland,
there's an opportunity that! cannot pass up.
Now I'm going to retrace my steps down the
Settle to Carlisle railway again to Ribblehead
because I've got the opportunity
of crossing the viaduct on a steam train.
Every week during the summer,
a steam train called The Fellsman
powers over the Yorkshire Moors.
I 'II catch the 11.20 to ride
just one stop to Garsdale.
Just now I think I've heard for the first time
the sound of the engine approaching.
The sound just is drifting
occasionally on the wind,
but I think it is unmistakably
the sound of an engine
pulling the train up this very steep
incline into Ribblehead Station.
It reminds me of the
Thomas The Tank Engine books
where the train goes up the hill.
“I think I can, I think I can,
I think I can, I think I can."
The locomotive bums around
80 pounds of coal per mile
along the route up to Ribblehead.
It's like stepping back to the Victorian era.
Now it's thundering towards us.
The landscape has now been obliterated
by the smoke of the engine.
And now, at last,
here comes the locomotive itself,
masses of black and grey smoke
billowing out of it.
It's a fantastic sight! And now
steam appearing at the level of the wheels
as the train begins
to brake coming into our station.
Feel the heat of the engine as it goes past!
Lovely to see you.
Good morning. Good morning.
- Jump on here and then just go to the left.
- Thank you.
This is a fantastic sight as the steam engine
begins to go over the Ribblehead Viaduct.
You'll never see another sight
like this on a railway in Britain.
This is magical.
The valleys are full of people
waving at the train,
photographing the train.
You know, it's really exciting for me,
having participated in that decision
to save this railway,
to see now steam trains,
to see tourists, to see people enjoying it,
to see it becoming a great success.
It's very, very exciting. I'd say moving.
The journey to Garsdale lasts just 20 minutes,
doing an average speed of 55 miles an hour.
All along the 72-mile line,
the historic sight of steam locomotive hauling
maroon carriages is a joy to behold.
Brilliant. Thank you.
We're off to see the driver.
We're almost out of the station!
That was one of the great thrills of my life.
Thank you very much indeed.
Absolutely fantastic.
On my next journey,
I'll be discovering why Victorian tourists
flocked to Windermere's famous lake.
Roger, what a lovely spread,
and this is the height of elegance.
I'll be learning a thing or two about Kendal
Kendal Mint Cake, please.
We don't stock Kendal Mint Cake.
It isn't actually a cake.
- Well, that has thrown me.
- Oh, I'm so sorry!
And I'll be finding out
how the railways changed farming life.
You would bring all that abundance
of food to the population to sell
and I think railways have
changed farming considerably.
His name was George Bradshaw
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making four long journeys across the length
and breadth of the country to see
what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.
I'm embarked on a railway journey
from Northern England to Lowland Scotland
using a guidebook that's 150 years old.
But today I'm making a detour
along a railway line
that wasn't even built
when this book was published.
The Settle to Carlisle railway is thought to be
one of the most scenic in Britain
and I feel a very strong personal connection
with it.
When I last visited this part of the world,
British Rail had asked permission
to close the line.
I was the Minister of Transport
and the Government had to decide
whether to approve the closure.
On my journey today,
I'll be finding out what's happened to it
since I convinced Margaret Thatcher to save it.
You know, of all the things I did,
it's the one that I can still point at and say,
“Look, that made this difference.“
I'll be discovering how building the route
claimed so many lives.
Of all the chapels along the line,
this, sadly, has got the most number of deaths.
And I 7! be getting the thrill of a lifetime.
This is a fantastic sight
as the steam engine begins to go
over the Ribblehead Viaduct.
You'll never see another sight
like this on a railway in Britain.
All this week,
I'm travelling north from Preston to Scotland.
Along the way, I 7! be following
Bradshaw's Guide to the Lake District
before heading up to Glasgow
on the first railway route to cross the border,
and then on to my final destination, Kirkcaldy.
On today's journey, I'm heading
inland from Morecambe Bay to Settle,
to take the historic Midland railway
line to Ribblehead and Garsdale.
I haven't travelled the Settle to Carlisle
for 20 years.
The reason it's so special is that it is
a piece of magnificent railway architecture.
It goes through the most stunning countryside
and has some of the most remarkable viaducts.
You don't have to be a railway
enthusiast to be blown away.
Opened in 1876, it's 72 miles long,
with tiny stations in some of
the most rugged countryside in Britain.
And my first stop today is at the southern
gateway to the tine, Settle.
Settle Station is looking magnificent.
It's great to be back.
And I am back to reminisce
about events 20 years ago.
This market town was the headquarters
for the battle to save the Settle to Carlisle line.
I've come to the Council Chamber
to meet two very determined people.
The formidable campaign was started here
by Peter Shore and Mark Rand.
Peter, good to see you again.
- How are you?
- Very well, thank you.
Hello, Mark.
When did you first hear that
there was an official move to close the line?
In 1983, so we had two years
to build up our membership
and staff to build a case
before the official announcement.
Tn the early 19803,
the tine carried just a few trains each day.
Passenger numbers were low,
intermediate stations had closed
and the route was losing money.
The line was failing apart and British Rail
argued that it would cost too much to repair.
Its request to close it caused a storm of protest
We were very determined
that one of the things that we should do,
as well as shouting from the rooftops,
was to increase passengers
and thereby increase revenue which would
have some effect in Whitehall, we hoped.
MICHAEL: But the really critical thing you did
was to get more people to use the railway.
I remember the summer I had to make
the decision, 300,000 people used the railway,
so then it was possible
to argue that it had revived
and was going to be an economic proposition.
The campaign raged for six years,
generating huge publicity for the line.
As a result, ever more people began to use it,
strengthening the case for keeping it open.
And it was my job
to get the Prime Minister onside.
I did feel quite emotional about it
because I felt emotional about a line
which is so important in our heritage.
By the way, I thought Margaret Thatcher would
understand that argument, too, you know?
Of course, she was the Iron Lady
with the handbag, balancing the books,
but she really cared about British history, too,
so I thought I had a line in there, as well.
- Was that the case?
- Oh, yeah.
One of the things that you required...
You actually wrote to us on 11 April 1989,
do you remember signing that?
This was a really stressful decision for me,
so I remember it pretty well.
“You'll be pleased to hear
the Secretary of State is today announcing
he's refusing consent for British Rail
to close the Settle to Carlisle railway line.“
- That's great.
- They flew the flags in Settle that day.
I think I drafted this sentence myself.
“I look to the Friends Of The Settle
To Carlisle Line Association
to cooperate vigorously in
supporting and promoting the line
as you have promised.“
- And I hope we can say we've kept our promise.
- You have!
Since being saved,
the line is being used by even larger numbers
of people, making it profitable again.
You mentioned a figure of 300,000 passengers.
It's now something like 750,000 a year
and rising.
And, of course, that's only the start of it
because the amount of freight
that uses the line is absolutely tremendous,
anything up to 40 heavy freight trains
24 hours a day,
so it's an absolutely remarkable
change of fortune for the line.
I read somewhere that you had said,
and perhaps you were misquoted,
as saying that the saving of
the Settle to Carlisle railway line
was the best thing you did in politics.
No, I did say that.
Somebody said,
"What's your greatest achievement in politics?"
I said, “Saving the Settle to Carlisle railway."
And, of course, the interviewer said,
"What? Never even heard of that! What?“
But it is because, you know,
of all the things I did,
it's the one that I can still point at and say,
“Look, that made this difference.“
I'm heading off on the next part of my journey,
ten miles along the line to Ribblehead.
I'm so pleased to see the route thriving.
It's thronged with tourists who help
to generate the income that pays for the tine.
So, the Settle to Carlisle railway,
have you worked on it long?
- About 18 months.
- How do you enjoy it?
It's very good. It's lovely. It's a lovely place to be.
Do you still take in the scenery
or is it all nothing to you now?
- It's always breathtaking.
- Are you pleased the line was saved?
Yes. Well, aren't we all?
- A really important bit of railway heritage.
- Definitely, yeah, definitely.
I mean, such a lot of people rely
on it as well, you know?
So it would have been a terrible shame.
So, yeah, there's a lot...
A lot of nice things to see. It's always a pleasure.
And everybody just loves it.
I've always been a big fan of yours
when you were a minister
when we were trying to save this line.
- Oh, thank you.
- My father worked on this line.
It's an amazing engineering achievement,
this line.
- Absolutely so, yes.
- I'm very, very pleased it got saved.
Thank you very much for what you said.
This railway is valued,
both for what it is today and for the ambition
of those Victorian engineers.
When you look out at this terrain,
you wonder how they could have ever dreamt
of building a railway line through it
particularly because, apart from steam engines,
they had very little machinery.
So the boring of the tunnels,
the building of the viaduct, had to be done
by vast numbers of navvies
working in very difficult conditions
with a very heavy death toll.
It must have seemed madness to build a railway
straight across the weather-beaten
Yorkshire Dales.
But the Midland Railway Company
wanted a high-speed link to Scotland
to compete with its rivals
and desperate needs generate heroic solutions.
6,000 men built 14 tunnels
and no fewer than 20 viaducts,
including one of the longest in Britain,
at Ribblehead.
An unusual station, Ribblehead,
because the two platforms are separated
by quite a distance,
but just beyond that platform
is just the top of the Ribblehead Viaduct.
You get no impression from here
of how very tall it is.
You can just see the tops of the arches
on this very glowering day.
It took four years and a third of the workforce
to build the viaduct
It's one of the Victorians'
greatest achievements.
As I come round this last brow,
I get my first full view of the Ribblehead Viaduct
for 20 years.
24 magnificent arches spanning the valley.
And even from here
it's difficult to get the sense of scale
because the highest of these arches,
I know, is 100 feet tall
and even though I'm almost, it seems,
within touching distance of it,
it's difficult to appreciate the vastness of this,
and to think that just hundreds of men,
hundreds of men had to pile
these immense blocks on top of each other
to create that incredible, beautiful structure.
By the 19803, this Victorian feat of engineering
was in danger of falling down.
The thing completely dwarfs him!
He looks... He looks like a speck.
- Hi, Tony!
- Hello.
Long time no see!
20 years, nearly.
Tony Feschini was the man sent to inspect it.
Now, when I met you,
you were a British Rail engineer.
Yes.
And we were being told that this viaduct needed
seven or nine million pounds spending on it,
in those days.
But you had a different view, didn't you?
Well, I was fortunate enough to be allowed
to do a trial repair here
which allowed me to understand fully
the important parts of the structure.
And what did you find?
I found that it would cost
between 2.75 and 3.25 million.
- And why?
- And we achieved it in the end.
With the cost of repair revised down
to a third of previous estimates,
the case for closure weakened
and rebuilding began.
So, as you began to research it,
were you impressed by
what the Victorians had done?
Absolutely. The first thing that catches you
here is the weather.
And we're pretty well clad today
even though it's...
it's... we're getting wet.
I could imagine people living
on this moor throughout the year -
in winter it will be pretty daunting.
It's bad enough living here in summer.
What kind of difficulty
would it have been building this?
Oh, tremendous difficulty.
If you can imagine the site in the 18703,
the whole of the area would be wild countryside.
To come here and set up a site,
to build a structure of this size
and magnitude in an area like this
would have been a formidable task in any age.
Many of the navvies who built the viaduct
came here with their families.
Shantytowns appeared all along
the route to house thousands of people
working through the gates and snow
to build the line by hand for years on end.
It was backbreaking work.
They're pretty big blocks of stone, aren't they?
Extremely big blocks, son of two cubic metres.
They're massive.
It's built in groups of six arches for safety.
Every sixth pier is a wider pier.
That gives stability to the structure.
If you lost one arch you could lose six,
but no more.
- But no more.
- It would be better than 24.
Even with modern machinery,
Tony still faced a huge challenge
to restore the viaduct.
So, tell me this,
if you've got to take a block of stone out
and replace it, how on earth do you do that?
We used, like, a mining technique.
What you have to do is...
A man will start to nibble away the stone
bit by bit,
but you work in and prop it,
prop the ones above from the one below
and carefully work your way in
so you don't disturb the ones above you.
One thing I didn't want to be
was the man who demolished
Ribblehead Viaduct while I was working here.
Are you still inspired by it?
I am. It's a super structure, really.
It is truly magnificent.
Remarkably, it's still possible to find
descendants of those hard-working navvies.
James Rickson's family helped
to build the line 140 years ago.
I'm taking the 7.20,
so I've got quite a long time, yet.
- Can I buy you a drink?
- Thank you.
- What will you have?
- Haifa bitter, please, Michael.
Two halves of bitter, please.
Thank you very much.
They tell me you're the great-grandson
of one of the people who built the viaduct?
My great-great-grandfather was Robert Rickson
and he was the manager of
what was called the Sebastopol Brickworks.
We've checked the censuses for 1871
and, believe it or not,
there were 14 members of his family
up here working on the railway
in various jobs, ranging from
adults working as pure navvies,
to being in a managerial
position and just children.
Out of all the family members
who worked here, did they all survive?
No, they didn't all survive.
There was a severe smallpox outbreak
in the hutments, in the encampments in 1871,
and three of the five children
that had come up with the family
died in that epidemic
within the space of six weeks.
- How dreadful.
- Yes, it was not good news for the family.
And those children were all buried in the little
chapel down the road at Chapel-le-Dale.
The railway work camps were plagued
by repeated outbreaks of smallpox,
starvation and violence, leading to many deaths.
You can get an idea of the dreadful to“
at the chapel closest to the viaduct.
And this is a lovely little church.
It's the parish church of
St Leonard's, Chapel-le-Dale,
very historic, dates back to the 15th century,
and it helps to tell the very terrible story
of the building of the Settle to Carlisle railway.
- Gerald, good morning.
- Good morning.
I'm Michael.
Historian Gerald Tyler has pieced together
what happened all those years ago.
The importance of the chapel is
that of all the chapels along the line,
this, unfortunately, sadly,
has got the most number of deaths.
There were something like,
between 1870 and 1875, 201 deaths.
Now, some of those were, in fact,
obviously the navvies themselves
who suffered the most appalling accidents.
And, of course,
because there were so many families,
then there was a shantytown settlement.
I mean, there's one report
of the health doctor coming round
and being appalled by what he saw,
that there was overcrowding in the huts.
There were three rooms
in these standard huts
and you might have a family with,
say, half a dozen children
and then they take in lodgers
for another eight single men.
- That must mean there was disease rampant.
- There was, indeed.
Of the 200 or so that died
in that particular period,
110 of those were children
under the age of 13.
So many people lost their lives here
that the railway company paid for
the graveyard to be extended.
But even that wasn't enough.
Down there, there are dozens of bodies
of people who lie in unmarked graves.
- Under all this bracken?
- Yeah, that's right.
There appears to be one particular mound that
suggests there may have been a mass grave.
- It's very moving actually, isn't it? Very moving.
- It is. It is indeed.
With that dark history playing on my mind,
my emotional attachment to this railway
is strengthened further as I move on to Dent.
Even when the railway was completed,
the job still continued
because in some of the worst weather in Britain,
the line had to be kept open,
a particular problem as we approach Dent,
the highest railway station in England.
Maintaining the line proved
almost as difficult as building it.
15 men lived up here in the most
isolated conditions all winter
to keep the line free of snow.
That's where I'm staying.
Workers were packed like sardines into
these small snow huts for six weeks at a lime.
Hello!
The weather at the moment is grim.
I just have to imagine how much worse
it would be if instead of rain, this was snow.
I'm going to live for one night
as a railway worker would have lived
at the end of the 19th century
ready to go out and clear the snow
from the railway line.
Ha!
I don't think so!
It's been beautifully, luxuriously convened.
And it's warm!
The snow huts and nearby station house
have been turned into luxury accommodation
for tourists by owner, Robin Hughes.
It's just one of the businesses springing up
as a result of the railway.
It's fantastic, every detail of the station
has been beautifully preserved...
...but Robin's made it into a house.
- Morning, Robin.
- Michael, good morning.
Wow! What a beautiful place!
After all the publicity in the 1980s,
tourists started to flood in.
There were more frequent trains
and the smaller stations reopened,
including Dent.
Although you've bought this building,
the station is still functioning
and has a waiting room?
It's still an operational railway station.
Being the highest mainline station in England,
it's quite appealing.
It's in the middle of nowhere,
but you can get here,
there are five trains that go from here
each day to Leeds or Carlisle,
so it's quite operational.
I imagine the railway line is pretty
important for the local economy.
Yeah, very much so.
Dent village is four miles from this station,
but this morning at about 10.15
both platforms were fairly busy
with people going either north or south
for a day's shopping
or exploring the area and, yes, it is,
it's a very important link for the community here
and for communities up and down the line.
Because it's a real issue, isn't it,
how very remote villages survive?
But here you seem to have found the answer.
Yeah, we try and engage a range
of local people to run the station.
I've got a cleaner, housekeeper,
we provide Dent ale for people who come,
a food hamper, as well.
So there is a lot of enterprise in the Dale
and we try and use as much
of that in our offering as we can.
The tine has kept the nearby village of Dent
on the map.
There are companies hiring bikes
to day trippers,
a brewery and a busy blacksmith.
- Hello.
- Hello, hello.
Lucy Sands Clark's skills were used
in the conversion of the station
and she's kept in business by
thousands of summer visitors to Dent.
And how is village life now?
Is it vibrant, do you see it having a future?
I really hope it will.
I think this is a lovely village
in that it still retains a lot of its traditional ways
and a lot of the farming families
have been here for generations.
At times of the year it's still very busy
and we've just had the Dent Dale Show.
Lots of people come to that and
over the summer we get a lot of campers
and there are always walkers through here
because it's on the Dales Way.
But it is really hard to afford property here
because obviously when somewhere
is very picturesque,
property prices are driven up
by people wanting second homes.
Without the railway,
specialist workshops like Lucy's
would be cut off from passing trade.
The line sustains the village's heritage.
You think this smithy is, how old?
Well, I think from what I understand,
it's certainly on the deeds in 1640
as being a blacksmith shop on this spot.
It's time for me to leave Dent,
but before I continue north to Scotland,
there's an opportunity that! cannot pass up.
Now I'm going to retrace my steps down the
Settle to Carlisle railway again to Ribblehead
because I've got the opportunity
of crossing the viaduct on a steam train.
Every week during the summer,
a steam train called The Fellsman
powers over the Yorkshire Moors.
I 'II catch the 11.20 to ride
just one stop to Garsdale.
Just now I think I've heard for the first time
the sound of the engine approaching.
The sound just is drifting
occasionally on the wind,
but I think it is unmistakably
the sound of an engine
pulling the train up this very steep
incline into Ribblehead Station.
It reminds me of the
Thomas The Tank Engine books
where the train goes up the hill.
“I think I can, I think I can,
I think I can, I think I can."
The locomotive bums around
80 pounds of coal per mile
along the route up to Ribblehead.
It's like stepping back to the Victorian era.
Now it's thundering towards us.
The landscape has now been obliterated
by the smoke of the engine.
And now, at last,
here comes the locomotive itself,
masses of black and grey smoke
billowing out of it.
It's a fantastic sight! And now
steam appearing at the level of the wheels
as the train begins
to brake coming into our station.
Feel the heat of the engine as it goes past!
Lovely to see you.
Good morning. Good morning.
- Jump on here and then just go to the left.
- Thank you.
This is a fantastic sight as the steam engine
begins to go over the Ribblehead Viaduct.
You'll never see another sight
like this on a railway in Britain.
This is magical.
The valleys are full of people
waving at the train,
photographing the train.
You know, it's really exciting for me,
having participated in that decision
to save this railway,
to see now steam trains,
to see tourists, to see people enjoying it,
to see it becoming a great success.
It's very, very exciting. I'd say moving.
The journey to Garsdale lasts just 20 minutes,
doing an average speed of 55 miles an hour.
All along the 72-mile line,
the historic sight of steam locomotive hauling
maroon carriages is a joy to behold.
Brilliant. Thank you.
We're off to see the driver.
We're almost out of the station!
That was one of the great thrills of my life.
Thank you very much indeed.
Absolutely fantastic.
On my next journey,
I'll be discovering why Victorian tourists
flocked to Windermere's famous lake.
Roger, what a lovely spread,
and this is the height of elegance.
I'll be learning a thing or two about Kendal
Kendal Mint Cake, please.
We don't stock Kendal Mint Cake.
It isn't actually a cake.
- Well, that has thrown me.
- Oh, I'm so sorry!
And I'll be finding out
how the railways changed farming life.
You would bring all that abundance
of food to the population to sell
and I think railways have
changed farming considerably.