The Settle to Carlisle Line

The railway route between Settle and Carlisle in the North West of England is one of the most scenic lines in Britain. Crossing moors and mountainside, through the Yorkshire Dales and the North Pennines, the line is famous for its spectacular views, its viaducts (not least the famous Ribblehead Viaduct) and tunnels, but this remarkable feat of Victorian engineering was under threat of closure by British Rail in the 1980s. Campaigners fought hard to keep it open and today growing numbers of passenger travel the line, closed stations have reopened and the line carries many steam-operated specials and charter trains as well as regular passenger and freight working from Settle Junction on the Leeds-Morecambe Line to Carlisle near the England-Scotland border. In this book photographer John Bentley has captured the variety of workings to be seen on this line and and its beautiful scenery in the last decade alongside a short selection of pictures taken by the author of when the line was threatened by closure in the 1980s.