25th September 2024

Through the medium of television, Michael Portillo’s ‘Great British Railway Journeys’ took me back to when I travelled the Settle to Carlisle line over the Ribblehead Viaduct. Impossible to appreciate from the train, the TV shots of the massive structure reminded me how impressive it is.

The Settle-Carlisle main line, built by Midland Railway over difficult terrain with 14 tunnels and 5 viaducts, was the last of Britain’s railways constructed largely by manual labour. Ribblehead viaduct, begun in 1869 (the year of Tyndale’s constitution as a church), took 5 years to build; is 442 yds long; carrying the track 104 ft above low-lying Batty Moss; each of the massive 24 arches standing on 25 ft of underground foundations . At the base of the arches are limestone blocks weighing up to 8 tons; above, 1.5 million bricks complete the structure.

2,300 workmen and their wives and children lived in camps nearby. During construction over 100 men were killed at work, in fights or by smallpox. A similar number of women and children died too.

In the 1980s, British Rail proposed closing the line, citing declining use and expensive repairs to Ribblehead viaduct. A pressure group, and cheaper restoration estimates, saved the line in 1989; the Minister of Transport who made the decision – Michael Portillo! Further restoration in 2020 keeps the line open, popular with steam train enthusiasts in special trains, who, like me, pass quickly over something that took so long to build, with so much effort, so much cost.

Each of us each day is eased on our way by those who have gone before us, and the legacy they left.

David Bell