Tracing a Lost Railway into England's Wildest Landscape

[@guyroebuck8510]

You hero for championing the cause. The way to make road traffic less is to spend on railways. . A Proven Fact. ❤

[@Terry.W]

I am a member of a group trying to reopen this line ...we got very close in 1999 and some bridges and land was kept for this line ..however incredibly everyone lost interest ...But with the constant gridlock and the pollution of motor vehicles the case for the reopening of this line has never been so needed....anyone that visits Keswick will know how frustrating it is visiting by car ...including if you can find an expensive car park....We will never give up hope..

[@JahsRulz]

Great video, fascinating history.

[@ianmansbridge3646]

Very much to the point. You make the case so well for better public facilities and the value of the northern scenery to Britain.

[@gzk6nk]

Great video. At the time this line closed the misguided thoughts were that railways had had their day, and the future transport medium would be the personal car. Well, time has shown just how short sighted and incorrect that was! And the tragedy is that when these lines were closed ni-one had the foresight to retain the trackbed in public ownership so that if, just if, the car proved not to be the golden panacea they thought it was, there'd be some realistic chance of reinstating the only form of public transport that can move large numbers of people and tonnages of goods around quickly and efficiently and environmentally cleanly. Bus services are not the answer - they vie for road space with the cars, get stuck in traffic, carry few passengers, and are too easily discontinued at an operator's whim.

[@HeatherPark-ij7yz]

Just discovered the channel. Coming from Wigton and often going to Keswick and Cockermouth, this video was amazing. Seeing parts of the railwaysnaking from Penritb and across the Northern lakes was fascinating. Thankyou so much. Totally agree less cars , more trains

[@mikeclarke3882]

Nice one Ollie....a great part of the world. I can't imagine an old steam train service wouldn't make money these days. It looked cold on the day of filming. I remember weather like that, pretending to be smoking on the way to school...😂😂

[@liamo8932]

Same, except i was pretending to be a full on steam train 😆

[@Rpboc]

As always, thank you for a fantastic video! We really enjoyed your exploration of this line 😀However, I think you should take the time to add your own subtitles to your videos, as the auto-generated ones are shockingly bad and say random things, thus excluding your content being available to individuals who are hard of hearing or deaf 🙂

[@richardberechula2942]

Nice one, Ollie. Good production - and a pleasant & informative watch on an otherwise miserable and grim autumn afternoon.

[@nickcaunt1769]

The Jewel in the Crown of tourist destinations in England deserves the highest priority!

[@He-Banshee.]

A beautiful video showing how as you said, we just can't have nice things. The one close to home for me is the Burscough curves linking Southport to Preston. Another crying shame of a line being closed and for reasons that are baffling as it closes off so much access There is a fight from us to get it reopen but seeing how poor they run the Manchester to Southport existing line I vet much doubt it

[@Steve-qz4vt]

Nicely put together. One of so many lines that should never have closed, saving relatively little money, their running costs having been exaggerated in many cases.

[@robertmaitland09]

Threlkeld mining museum is a gem, well worth a visit for a ride on the train.

[@chargeriderepeat7024]

Splendid video, I love disused railway lines, I was in Ivybridge a few months ago looking at the Plymouth line, the via ducts are awesome. You would never run out of content covering the railways.

[@BeeHereNowuk]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@karlgt9989]

Stunning viaducts

[@Dave1976.]

Excellent vlog. No one has ever covered this part. Well explained. Fab

[@ffrancrogowski6263]

Marvellous how you've researched this old forgotten railway, Ollie. A totally interesting video indeed. It's nice to see that there's some structures still in existence and in good condition. Many thanks for this presentation for us all to view.

[@regt5355]

Your telling of the story is amazing! Take note BBC

[@colinjolliffe]

I worked in Workington over 20 years ago, they talked about reopening the tailway back then. It would be great for Keswick to have a train service. I lived 160 miles away, 100 miles up the M6 was less than half the journey, the 60 miles on the A66 would take longer, especially in the summer.

[@dougmungoven4315]

Great video - I was in this area earlier this year and was puzzled by the viaducts going nowhere - now I know it all thanks to your thorough coverage of the history of the line. Such a fascinating history. The congestion in Keswick when I was there was similar to big city gridlock.

[@ColinH1973]

Excellent video about an area and a subject that I know very well indeed. Thanks very much for this.

[@jetsons101]

Ollie, your intro narration was great. What a way to open the story. What a beautiful hike, even on a rainy day. Speaking of money, I have read/herd that most of the "Money" ends up going to London ?????

[@BeeHereNowuk]

Thanks mate, glad you enjoyed it. Yeah it's no great secret the north of England gets neglected. 😕

[@martinwilkinson7939]

Doesn't London subsidise the rest of the country in terms of contributions to the UK treasury?

[@petercurtis3984]

I quite agree that they should restore this line and I believe there is an ongoing campaign to get the line restored. The French loco and carriages is the actual train that were used in the film Murder on the Orient Express starring Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot. An excellent video about the history of this line.

[@paulkavanaghk]

This was a very useful line for both passenger and goods and should never have been closed!

[@niallh8129]

Great video as always ❤ this railway will never fully reopen, the section from Keswick to Cockermouth has been largely destroyed by the building of the A66. The section from Keswick to Penrith could reopen (BR and the government of the time where crazy to close it) but it would need serious investment and politicians dont really like things that involve investment especially in transport....

[@stevedevlin3739]

Great video

[@dixonpeter]

I travel to the lakes most weekends from Bishop Auckland, would have been fantastic to get a train over the old stainmore line to penrith then into the lakes!

[@peterknight6535]

How about a story of the line that crossed the Solway Firth, a line sadly forgotten since it was washed away. The Solway Junction Railway.

[@curtevans297]

Great documentary. Thank you.

[@lifeschool]

The Keswick Council approved permission for a new railway with Penrith, but perhaps most of the money went in to digging up vast chunks of protected land for underground water mains to Manchester. So I doubt it will happen now.

[@matthewclarke3094]

Beeching was only the axe man. His boss, the transport minister was Ernest Marples, he had to suddenly pack his bags and get out of Britain because the tax man was catching up on him. One guess what political party he belonged to.

[@brockside1575]

More than one guess is required🤣🤣

[@philtt5698]

Great video Ollie. I often look over to the viaduct when driving along the A66 and wonder about the line. I think it would be great if they extended the cycleway to Penrith.

[@BeeHereNowuk]

Yeah at the very least the cycle way could be extended

[@Brisletop]

Excellent film. Remember watching the trains in many places along the line, as youngster, Mum and Dad alway stopped for a picnic break along Bassenthwaite lake, before continuing on , to visit family in Greysouthern. O Dr Beaching what have you done. It seems most investment goes south, from any northern taxes. HS2, what's the use or need. We'll never be as big the Spanish high speed network. We're too small a country. Business people can fly , industry needs freight, normal people need value travel, not mach 1 zooming........

[@simonfunwithtrains1572]

There is a very good documentary film of this railway line made in the 1960,70's I cannot remember the name of the film, but I expect someone has put it up on KZbin. We too have been along the last remaining parts of this line in the 1980's but now the Lake district rarely features on days out for us, as it so much busier than the Dales. Good informative film as always Thanks S&J

[@joshuanishanthchristian5217]

Great video! For a solid while there I thought this video might finally reveal to me what the mysterious abandoned viaduct and line one can see from the WCML between Oxenholme and Penrith was, but alas it's a different line to the one I thought!

[@WildOwlFilms]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingleton_branch_line. The viaduct you mentioned is the Low Gill viaduct on the Ingleton line.

[@maunsell24]

Low Giil viaduct with a down freight hauled by an Ivatt Class 4 "Flying Pig" Mogul featured as the intro to each of the six episodes of the 1988 BBC TV series 'The Train Now Departing'. It then faded to a comparison shot after the closure of the line and the tracks lifted. The exact same scene can be easily viewed to this day from the minor road overbridge here - maps.app.goo.gl/9DNydjJu5gufnFqj6

[@grayfreeman]

Brilliant!

[@neilmchardy9061]

If you can see the fells it’s probably raining, if you can’t see them it’s pissing down

[@ste2442]

Sound that mate , really enjoyed it .

[@BeeHereNowuk]

Thanks mate

[@GaryJohnWalker1]

Deserves restoration. Would be expensive but not extortionately so as most of the route is accessible and reasonably well prepped. Electrified of course - but hybrid overhead line / battery for the awkward bits would again mean could quickly be achieved.

[@neilmchardy9061]

It would make a lot more sense than HS2

[@xr6lad]

Reinstate it as a high speed light rail. You don’t need it for freight or intercity services. And light rail has the benefit of cheaper closer together stations. Longer trams these days can carry more people. Have car parks set up at each station.

[@youngmurphy7556]

We used to call "lost" railways disused railways. Funny how language changes over time. By the way, I walked the section in Keswick on my way to Castlerigg Stone Circle and it was so lost it was part of the C2C long distance cycle route. 😂

[@xr6lad]

And get misused yet the younger generation think they know better. It’s not strictly ‘lost’. Everyone knows where it is.

[@PhilipMurphy8]

Excellent video from Bee Here Now

[@BeeHereNowuk]

Many thanks!

[@Wishful-Thinking]

Apparently the brand new retro bridges installed between Threlkeld & Keswick are designed to be able to take the railway line should it be reinstated. So there is still strong hope it might be at some point but as always it will come down to cost v economics.

[@harriergr7728]

The Bump in the line to Blencow was done in order to negotiate the contours (Rails Through Lakeland book Vol 1 by Harold D Bowtell). The station at Blencow was originally going to be called Newbiggin when they were planning the line, but was named Blencowe (note the e at the end of the name) in Jan 1865. Interesting that you missed out The Big Tunnel, north of Keswick that has now been dug out and is back in use with hikers and cyclists. Great video 👍.

[@nigelwright7557]

Newbiggin would have been confusing as there is a Newbiggin on the Settle line.

[@ADAMEDWARDS17]

I can just remember staying on holiday near Threlkeld and taking the train into Keswick. It's clear why the line shut: Old trains (the old DMUS of the 1950s), unreliable (our train was so late the guard gave a free ride to two OAPs heading for Carlisle into Keswick and back to stay warm), station at Keswick a longish walk from the town centre and the service was not even hourly as it was a single unit running all the way to Carlisle. Contrast that with a much more frequent bus which went from the middle of Threlkeld village and into the centre of Keswick and people were voting with their feet. The new road making the bus even faster would mean the case for rebuilding will be very difficult to make. Sad it's gone, but I doubt it will every come back.

[@peterknight6535]

Does the bus still run? Many replacement busses were taken away after the railway had been lifted.

[@pedanticradiator]

​@peterknight6535 yes there is a regular bus service between Penrith and Workington via Penruddock, Threlkeld, Keswick, Embleton anf Cockermouth

[@Andrewjg_89]

I hate what Dr Beeching has done to close so many railway lines and stations with most of them being reinstated and replaced by roads. Maybe the railway line that once went to Keswick should reopen. Just like the Borders Line in Scotland, Northumberland Line and of course the East-West line.

[@nigelbarker4135]

Nice blog Ollie 👍👏👏👏👏🫡

[@tonyford2734]

The 'locomotive' at Bassenthwaite lake is neither French, nor a real Locomotive. It, and the coaches behind it, are actually movie props from the film 'Murder on the Orient Express' directed by Kenneth Brannagh, and you're in the wrong place for Cockermouth Station. The Mountain rescue centre stands on the site of the station.

[@simondavids9438]

Shame they couldnt do something similar with the old Partington to cadishead line.

[@geoffbrookes4594]

Interesting video ….thanks. I started work on the railway in August 1961. After 3 months, you could apply for your first free pass. Mine was from Walsall to Cockermouth, I travelled with a mate (who had to pay) and we stayed at Cockermouth youth hostel before having a few days walking holiday, staying at other hostels such as Buttermere and Derwentwater. Magic times, we were both 15. This line, like so many others should never have closed. Now we have gone totally into reverse, building a line that nobody needs or wants, costing and wasting billions of pounds….yes …of course High Speed 2. Mad world. 🚂🚴‍♂️👣🇺🇦

[@peterknight6535]

As a former railman I am surprised at your comment. HS2 was designed to take express traffic and semi fast trains, thus leaving paths for freight traffic, did you know that over 7 million containers come into this country annually? (figure taken from an Eddie Stobbart documentary of some years ago) Pity the spin doctors tried to sell it with the wrong spin. Does ANYONE really need to get anywhere 10/20 minutes sooner? If it is so desperate (the 10 or 20 minutes) get an earlier train. Do we put them - the containers - on the overcrowded road system or shall we put them onto the spare paths created by building HS2? The original idea was not just London/B'ham/Manchester, it would also have opened the west side of the country, and also the Liverpool/Hull corridor, and the route through Derbyshire to Sheffield.

[@stevengordon-head2420]

Remember steam trains using this. They built the dual carriageway on the track bed adjacent to the lake.

[@davidbrewer7844]

which is why it will never be revived

[@timothyseabrook1584]

i think the people would be better served by turning this disused railway into a paved traffic free cycleway you could grt cyclists trsvrling from all over the country just to cyclr on this delightful line those viaducts are a god sent resource for cyclists school children could still use the line turned into a cycle path to get to & ftom school cyclists with cargo bikes could use it for msking deliveries. for fither ingo on grtting it turned into a cycle path try contacting Sustrans in Bristol

[@Alex-cw3rz]

What is the music at the start I recognise it but can't remember the name

[@iancaveney7464]

I was wondering about that, too, sounds like Hard Times (Come Again No More), which I'm only familiar with as an American folk song, rather than a brass band version.

[@BeeHereNowuk]

Yeah it's 'Hard Times Come Again No More' , brass version. Part of the KZbin library

[@subaruadventures]

Why would you destroy that Viaduct? So stupid to get rid of such a beautiful structure.

[@wurly1]

Because it avoids the continual cost of maintenance, keeping a redundant structure safely standing.

[@scujim]

In Germany such old railtracks have been turned into cycle tracks,

[@tonyford2734]

A 4 mile stretch of this one has

[@simonmcowan6874]

Aberystwyth to Carmarthen line, please........

[@tridentmusic5570]

Hard times. Come again no more? Apposite.

[@northernengland]

That was great, I used to stop at that bit of the lake car park where your drone was for a break, unbelievable place. The railways were destroyed so a few people could make money from oil.

[@ratatat9790]

Love your channel but i'm not a fan of the 'Jeff Stelling' type pauses in sentences tbh.

[@Vtarngpb]

Bloody Beeching!! 🤬🤬

[@22pcirish]

Marples. Not Beeching.

[@xr6lad]

I love how people blame everything on beeching. Are you aware plenty of rail was closed before he became General Manager and plenty was closed after he left. No one else stopped it. Even the big 4 closed lines.

[@22pcirish]

@@xr6lad Correct. Beeching was only responsible for writing a report about the reshaping of the railways to make it more cost effective. How the various transport ministers interpreted the report is where the arguments start.

[@xr6lad]

@@22pcirish100%. I blame Beeching less. He was given a job to reduce costs and that was his report. They didn’t have to adopt it. Marple of course was corrupt. But people need to remember within a year Labour was in power and Barbara Castle rarely reversed any closure (with a couple of exceptions). BR closed a lot in the 1950’s. And the Big 4 had started to be affected by rural buses and truck freight transport by the 1930’s and had started closing branch lines or reducing services back then

[@22pcirish]

@ Castle didn’t stop the closures because at that time in the 60’s the car became king and public transport was seen as old fashioned. The money was wasted by not modernising until AFTER the line closures and create a modern all electric streamlined network.

[@totherarf]

This seems ........ appropriatekzbin.info/www/bejne/pYbVfaGte79nodU

[@BeeHereNowuk]

Excellent

[@totherarf]

@@BeeHereNowuk He used to be a Fireman on the railway ..... which dates him! He does have some good stories too!

[@tikkathreebarrels]

It's as if Dr Beeching knew that one day train drivers would be the last bastion of trade union power and would want over £70k to shunt small trains through these hills: where's the income stream to sustain that?

[@chrism8705]

Dr Beeching Patron saint of cycling tracks(bimblism site)👍