SAVING THE SETTLE

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2019 :: RMTnews 16 Thirty years ago England’s most scenic railway the Settle-Carlisle Line, which crosses the remote, stunning regions of the Yorkshire Dales and the North Pennines, was saved from closure following an enormous battle which had as many twists and turns as the line itself. After Tory MP Michael Portillo famously lost his seat at the 1997 general election he claimed that his greatest achievement was ‘saving the Settle to Carlisle line’. However, as he well knew, it took an army of very hard working and extraordinary men and women to win the battle before Portillo – Minister of State with responsibility for railways at the time – made the official announcement saving the line in 1989. The real heroes of this story are groups like the Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line (FoSCL) which by 1989 had become the largest rail user group in the country with influence and contacts in local and national government circles as well as support from the National Union of Railwaymen. In fact when Portillo tried to secretly ride in the cab incognito along the line during the campaign the FoSCL got wind of it and organised thousands to line the route with banners at stations and bridges calling on him by name to save their railway. Portillo himself believed in privatising the line but this proved to be a non-starter as no carpetbagger wanted to look after 14 tunnels and 22 viaducts, including the magnificent 24-arch Ribblehead standing 104 feet high and 440 yards long, he later blamed ‘a lack of investor confidence’. So today, although it looks like a heritage railway with beautifully restored Victorian buildings along the route, it remains part of the national rail network with its passenger trains operated by Northern Rail. The line was always a political hot potato when it was completed in 1876 at enormous human and financial cost. Thousands of navvies worked in remote locations, enduring harsh weather and living in large camps. The remains of Batty Green camp, where over 80 died alone following a smallpox epidemic died, can be seen near Ribblehead. Despite the magnificence of its engineering, its steeper gradients and greater length meant that it could not compete on speed from London to Glasgow with the West Coast mainline and murmurs about shutting the line had already begun in the 1930s. During the war years the railways were sequestrated and little money was spent while expectations rocketed with passenger numbers doubling on the entire network and rail traffic rising by 80 per cent. By the end of the war the railways were on the verge of collapse. After nationalisation in 1948, Settle-Carlisle railway was regarded as a duplicate line and control over the through London-Glasgow route was split over several regions which made it hard to plan popular through services. A slow closure programme began of lines and stations that linked or touched the railway including the lines to Hawes in 1959. At this juncture the nemesis of Britain’s railways, road construction magnet Ernest Maples, became Transport Minister. Due to a conflict of interest he had resigned as managing director of Marples Ridgeway, which would win many contracts to build London’s flyovers, but signed 80 per cent shares in the company to his wife. In 1961 he drafted in one Dr Richard Beeching to begin the wholesale destruction of Britain’s railways. While Dr Beeching closed railways his SAVING THE SETTLE RMT News marks 30th anniversary of the reprieve of the iconic Settle-Carlisle railway line from closure against the odds RMT guard Darren Roden Garsdale station