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2017 EVERGREEN 57<br />

Ravenglass Station is the starting point<br />

for the seven-mile long railway.<br />

DOROTHY BURROWS<br />

Beckfoot, but all the same I remained<br />

on the train all the way to Dalegarth,<br />

just three whistle-tooting minutes on<br />

from Beckfoot.<br />

Dalegarth for Boot Station (to<br />

grant it its full current name) is in<br />

the high season a café, shop, picnic<br />

site, playground and car park that<br />

happens to have a couple of working<br />

railway platforms attached. The<br />

large station building is relatively<br />

new, having been opened in 2007 by<br />

record producer and rail enthusiast<br />

Pete Waterman. It gets very busy<br />

but most visitors don’t stray very<br />

far. It’s worth stating “McVey’s Iron<br />

Law of the Lakes”: wherever you<br />

are in Lakeland, however busy it<br />

is, it is always easy to escape the<br />

crowds, given a few minutes and the<br />

willingness to walk for a bit!<br />

I proved the truth of this law<br />

again. I quickly backtracked along<br />

the road to Beckfoot and went<br />

off-road on to the Blea Tarn path,<br />

crossing the railway on a wee level<br />

crossing. The path climbs quickly<br />

but easily, thanks to the zig-zags, and<br />

I was able to take a picture of a train<br />

pausing briefly far below at Beckfoot.<br />

In Walks from Ratty Wainwright<br />

describes the view of upper Eskdale<br />

from here as “delectable” and he’s<br />

not wrong. At Blea Tarn, on a good<br />

day in school-holiday August, I met<br />

three other parties. One had come

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