Evergreen
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
2017 EVERGREEN 55<br />
Wainwright’s book and (below) the busy<br />
platform at Dalegarth Station.<br />
The Ravenglass and Eskdale<br />
Railway — known affectionately<br />
as La’al Ratty — is a 15-inch gauge<br />
line that runs seven miles from<br />
Ravenglass on the Cumbrian coast<br />
to Dalegarth, deep in Eskdale and<br />
surrounded by soaring Lakeland<br />
fells. It has operated as a preserved<br />
railway since 1960 though its origins<br />
are as an industrial line.<br />
Walks from Ratty has the same page<br />
size and design as Wainwright’s<br />
classic seven but it only has 32<br />
pages, is unbound and the pages are<br />
merely stapled together. It sits in the<br />
hand like a racecard or an order of<br />
service, but it’s very pleasant to hold,<br />
particularly in its earlier editions. As<br />
you’d expect from the master, it gives<br />
a comprehensive list of suggestions,<br />
10 of them, for walks beginning and<br />
ending at Ravenglass and Eskdale<br />
Railway stations. Most start from<br />
Dalegarth Station<br />
at the head of<br />
Eskdale but others<br />
use the stations at<br />
Ravenglass, Irton<br />
Road and Beckfoot.<br />
The most<br />
adventurous walk is<br />
the ascent of Harter<br />
Fell from Dalegarth,<br />
with material<br />
cribbed from the<br />
appropriate chapter<br />
in Wainwright’s The<br />
Southern Fells, Book Four in the Pictorial<br />
Guide series (which doesn’t actually<br />
mention the railway). The other<br />
routes offer gentler options on lower<br />
fells, in valleys or to picturesque tarns.<br />
Walks from Ratty recognises<br />
something important about<br />
the railway, something that<br />
distinguishes it from many of the