he Settle & Carlisle railway runs across the roof of England, reaching
the highest point on any main line railway in the country, and carries
both passenger services and freight traffic. But it has also been
fortunate enough to survive two attempts to close it and in fact should
probably never have been built at all. There could now be a 72-mile
abandoned trackbed passing through such places as Blea Moor, over Dent
Head and Arten Gill viaducts and the legendary Ais Gill summit, but
sufficient people felt strongly enough to campaign successfully to stop
this happening.
This is the story of the revival in the fortunes of the Settle &
Carlisle. Many closed stations have reopened and been restored to their
former glory, freight traffic has returned and steam-hauled excursions
over the line have gone from strength to strength