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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