A vociferous campaign was fought to save it, and now it is a thriving route, clocking up 1.2 some million journeys a year. It was a poorly kept secret in December 1983 that British Rail were considering possibly closing the line, and then printed closure notices appeared setting the dreaded date as May 1984. The track would be lifted, stations boarded up and viaducts and tunnels left to decay, and the seventy two miles would cease to exist.
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| One of the most iconic train journeys in Britain |
The infamous Doctor Beeching had already seen off some 5,000 miles of railway lines in the 1960’s, and it now seemed as though this beloved length of track was about to go the same way.
But life occasionally has ways of working for the greater good, and fortune smiled on the Settle-Carlisle, because that blunt and drily-worded closure poster contained a fundamental legal error meaning the posters had to be taken down, reprinted and reissued, thus giving the newly-formed Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line vital time to get organised and encourage objectors to write letters.
John Moorhouse, who was the chairman of the North West Transport Users Consultative Committee, played a key role in fighting the closure and says the unexpected level of opposition to the plan gave some hope.
"You had to be optimistic, the objections kept mounting up and I think that closure notice being reissued was a big help in the campaign to keep the line open," he said. Also shutting the line was opposed by the local authorities, they came together and made a very good case to keep it open."
As is often the case, the extra publicity that the railway line was receiving resulting in passenger numbers starting to rise.
Because they felt that time was running out, visitors to the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria's Eden Valley took to leaving their cars at home and catching the train instead, believing it might be the last chance they would get to travel over Ribblehead Viaduct or through England's highest mainline station at Dent. The resultant rise in passenger numbers meant that British Rail had to increase the number of services it operated over the route and, for the first time since the 1960s, the spiral of decline had been halted.
The biggest hurdle was likely to be the main reason that British Rail was advocating closure and that was the dilapidated state of the viaduct at Ribblehead. Built in 1870 the 100ft (30m) high structure was in desperate need of repair. Official estimates put the price at £7m, but the campaigners found engineers who were able to prove that the work could be carried out at a fraction of the cost.
The arguments against closure were diminishing, but the railway was still sucking up public money and even though the prospects were looking brighter, it was felt that the pro-road Conservative government would eventually give closure the green flag. The final decision would rest with the then Minister of State for Transport and Thatcher loyalist Michael Portillo.
Virtually without warning in May 1989, Mr. Portillo told British Rail he was refusing permission to close the railway, which on reflection he admits was a difficult decision.
"There was awkwardness because Conservatives want to do two things, they want public services to run efficiently, so we wanted to reduce public subsidy to the railway line, but we also had a respect for the national heritage and we knew it was a very remarkable and historic line," he said.
"Fortunately we managed to bring the two things together, because the economic case for closure was very much weakened when vast numbers of people began to travel on the line. There was a sort of closing down sale and also some very clever engineers discovered they could do the job of restoring the Victorian structures much more cheaply than we thought."
The Settle-Carlisle line had been thrown a lifeline by a sympathetic minister, who had more than a passing interest in the history of Britain's railways. Since 1989 the line has boomed, and last year there were 1.2 million passenger journeys compared with just 90,000 in the dark days of 1983.
The railway also helps pay its way by carrying timber from a line-side forest as well as providing a route for heavily-loaded coal trains that make their way from Scotland to Yorkshire's power stations.
Back to Mr Moorhouse who makes the point that if British Rail had got their way some of that traffic would instead be crawling along roads in the Yorkshire Dales.
Ironically, with privatisation, British Rail disappeared in the 1990s and the increasingly popular passenger trains are now operated by Northern Rail, which regards the route as a jewel in its crown. Drew Haley, who helps co-ordinate the promotion of the line for the company, says he is glad the closure poster was published 30 years ago.
"The closure notice was the best thing that could happen to this railway, because what doesn't kill you actually makes you stronger and now the stations look fantastic, there's a lot more trains and there's hundreds of thousands of extra people using this line every year, from all over the world," he said.
So what does the future hold? Those campaigners who realised the line was an asset back in 1983 are now talking in terms of a direct service into Manchester to create even more journey opportunities and after 30 years campaigning to save the line, the chairman of the Friends of the Settle Carlisle Line Mark Rand has said he can finally say the line is secure.
"I think the likelihood of us seeing in the future a notice of closure for this railway line is hugely, hugely unlikely. This line is here to stay now."
All about the Settle to Carlisle Route
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