NY1700 : Dalegarth Station, Eskdale
taken 16 years ago, near to Beckfoot, Cumbria, England
A steam preservation railway, originally build as a narrow gauge mineral line in 1875 to export Iron ore from the Esk valley via the port of Ravenglass. Locally known as La'al Ratty. The terminal stations are Ravenglass SD0896 : Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway Station, Ravenglass. & SD0896 : Ravenglass Station, Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway and Dalegarth NY1700 : Dalegarth Station & NY1700 : Dalegarth Station, Eskdale (at the village of Boot) Website: Link where a full timetable and history are available.
Boot is a very small village / Hamlet in Upper Eskdale. It sits at the foot of Hardknott Pass. The village was the centre of the Iron ore mining in the Esk Valley and is the eastern terminal for the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway. Today the economy depends on tourism.
Dalegarth for Boot railway station is the easterly terminus of the 15" gauge Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway in Cumbria. It has a café and shop for passengers, along with a run-round loop, turntable and siding for trains. It is located next to the Whillan Beck, a tributary of the River Esk flowing from the isolated Burnmoor Tarn.
The station has stood on this site since the mid-1920s, when it was moved from in front of the nearby miners' cottages (now home to employees of the railway). In the days of the 3' gauge line, the station was at Boot, but soon after the conversion of the final stretch to 15" gauge, it became apparent that the miniature locomotives could not cope with the gradient. The current station is on the route of a late-Victorian mine branch from the cottages to Gill Force, across the River Esk.
For about 80 years, the station building was a converted second-hand hut from the weapons testing establishment at Eskmeals near Ravenglass. The current building, utilising its railway embankment site to create a split-level layout with an education/meeting suite below the main café and shop area, was opened on 21 April 2007 by music producer and railway enthusiast Pete Waterman.