Evergreen

56 EVERGREEN Autumn
The view to Harter Fell from Boot Bank,
Eskdale.
TOM RICHARDSON
UK’s heritage lines. Ratty actually
goes somewhere; it takes you places.
At a typical heritage railway, people
will arrive (almost certainly by
car), go for a ride, return to the start
and drive away again. Many people
do experience the Ravenglass and
Eskdale in the same way but it’s
capable of offering a whole lot more,
and Wainwright’s little book makes
this clear. Want to have a bar lunch at
the Woolpack Inn in the delightfully
named village of Boot? Visit friends
who live nearby? Go for a walk?
Ratty can take you there.
It becomes obvious when you look
at the map. From Ravenglass Station
on the National Rail system the
Ravenglass and Eskdale penetrates
to the heart of Eskdale, a stunning
valley otherwise devoid of public
transport, just like an old-fashioned
branch line. Ironically, Ratty in its
present form was secured just as the
UK’s last surviving rural branch lines
were being ruthlessly culled.
I recently travelled to the railway
by train from Carlisle on a combined
ticket that included my journey
on Ratty. In the Blair years they’d
have called that “joined-up travel”.
Effectively the Ravenglass railway is
a part of the National Rail system.
I decided to try Walk Four from
Walks from Ratty, or part of it, anyway.
Wainwright recommends alighting
at Beckfoot (a halt just a few
hundred yards before Dalegarth),
climbing the steep zig-zag path
to Blea Tarn, and then wheeling
clockwise via Boot to the station at
Dalegarth. I just had the time for
a quick dash up and down from