Saturday 30 May 2026 - A Short Walk from Ribblehead

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Nine of us assembled at Victoria station for the 8 am train to Ribblehead, a ramblers special on which we were delighted to encounter Reg's daughter, Sangeerththa. Whernside towered above the railway line as a train arrived from the other direction.

We grabbed coffees and enjoyed looking around the small museum that chronicles the history of the railway and the Ribblehead Viaduct.

At this stage - mid morning, we strolled past the Railway Inn and headed towards the viaduct and the track that leads to Blea Moor.

Today's trip was organised by Jeanette for the 'Potatoes', a group of Hale citizens who decline to spend their retirement on couches. Paul, Jeanette, Rufus, me, Sue, Colette, Nick, Steve, Chris and Liz.

There's a lot of information available on the viaduct, including on Wikipedia, a short extract from which is as follows:

By the end of 1874, the last stone of the structure had been laid; on 1 May 1876, the Settle–Carlisle line was opened for passenger services. During the 1980s, British Rail proposed closing the line. In 1989, after lobbying by the public against closure, it was announced that the line would be retained. Since the 1980s, the viaduct has had multiple repairs and restorations and the lines relaid as a single track. The land underneath and around the viaduct is a scheduled ancient monument; the remains of the construction camp and navvy settlements (Batty Wife Hole, Sebastopol, and Belgravia) are located there.

Goods trains were using the line as we rose gently to the level of the railway near the Blea Moor signalbox.

There were lots of folk on the path. The 'Three Peaks Challenge' - Penyghent, Whernside and Ingleborough - was popular today. The timings would bring those challengers past Ribblehead at around this time. Given the lack of rain, bridges across the streams weren't necessary today, but they could be utikised - just because they are there.

We reached the point where our view of the railway sees it disappearing into a long tunnel.

We took photos in both directions before heading back to Ribblehead by an altenative route that afforded good views towards Ingleborough and across to the viaduct..

Near the Inn, a plaque commemorating the workers who constructed the viaduct by hand in the 1870s, and those who revived it in the 1990s using state of the art equipment.

Here's the route we took - 8.5 km, with 80 metres ascent, taking a good couple of hours.

After beers in the garden of the Railway Inn, we adjourned to a table indoors and a substantial meal.

Then a picturesque journey to Carlisle, followed by the West Coast Epress to Oxford Road and a tram home to complete a very enjoyable outing.

Artwork at Carlisle Station

A Flashback to Timperley's Railway History

 When Reg visited us last Sunday to go through the pictures for his autobiography, he reminisced about living in Timperley many years ago, and more recently, in 2014, leading a walk for the Railway Ramblers.

He recalls the bridge pictured above (photo taken on my way to BT Photographic to get his pictures scanned) because the walks leader on that occasion was taken ill and at very short notice Reg had to lead the walk. He has sent me the walk description he had to follow to what is described as the 'Black Bridge'.

That's very interesting. We live near a multitude of sites of old railway lines. Here's the current 1:25,000 scale map of the area. I've marked (if you can spot it) our house as 'Home', and the Black Bridge is just next to a long footway tunnel where the disused railways mentioned above diverged.

All very interesting... (to residents of Timperley, probably none of whom read this blog!)

A Chance Encounter

The other day my exercise on the bike was interrupted by Marian.

Marian lives in the old signalman's cottage at the Altrincham end of the disused railway that now forms part of the Trans-Pennine Trail for cyclists. The section by her cottage is currently closed for resurfacing. Marian joined me as I pondered the 'Path Closed' sign, and she volunteered an impromptu life story. It's nice to have time for things like this. She has lived in the 1-up, 1-down cottage (now extended a bit) for 54 years, during most of which time the railway operated. The line closed in 1985, some 4 years after the death of her husband, who I assume was the signalman. I suspect it was used for goods traffic only in its latter years - I don't recall using it to go from Manchester to Warrington in my early days of work before I had a car.

We bemoaned the fact that following closure the ballast had been removed; it's now needed for the cycle track.

Things have changed a bit during Marian's tenure at this place, but the same issues recur - hedge cutting, warnings of the dangerous bend in the road, potholes, the positioning of her driveway, her children (adults now with their own families, but still 'children' to Marian), worries about folk using the closed path, etc, etc.

A pleasant few minutes with a nice old lady - I tried hard to put a positive skew onto some of her worries.

The photo was taken with a box camera in 1960 at Stafford station. My old photo album has it captioned as 'Lord Kitchener' but this is actually 'Anzac', a Britannia Pacific class 4-6-2 engine built in the 1950's - one of the last steam engines to be built in Britain - at Crewe, I think.

There are some more fascinating facts here.

I remember taking the photo, but not in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day I would be able to show it to the world at the click of a button!