Qualla: Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smiley.toerist, CC BY-SA 4.0. Stand on the platform at Ravenglass and the train pulling in looks wrong. The locomotive is the size of a sit-on lawnmower; the carriages would fit in a large living room. Children settle into seats designed for them. Adults fold in next, knees touching strangers' knees, because the gauge here is fifteen inches - barely wide enough for an adult to straddle. The line is called the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway. Locals call it La'al Ratty. And the small thing, surprisingly, has been running for over 150 years.

Image: Smiley.toerist | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway: Iron Ore and the Owd Ratty

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nigel Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. The original railway opened on 24 May 1875, built for a single, blunt purpose: getting hematite iron ore out of three mines around the village of Boot, down the seven miles of Eskdale, to the Furness Railway's standard-gauge line on the Cumbrian coast at Ravenglass. The gauge - n...

Image: Nigel Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway: Rebuilt to Fifteen Inches

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Timothy Titus, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two years later, the line came back - but on a different scale. Bassett-Lowke, the famous model engineers, took it over and relaid it at fifteen-inch gauge to use a kind of railway that had until then existed mostly in the gardens of wealthy enthusiasts. The minimum-gauge experim...

Image: Timothy Titus | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway: Gilbert's Cutting and the Trade Off

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.0. Until 1964, trains crossing the line had to thread a sharp curve at Holling Head - a 145-foot radius that punished both locos and track - to avoid steep gradients. The fix was unglamorous and effective: dynamite. Using what the railway's records charmingly call "opencast gelignit...

Image: CC BY-SA 2.0

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway: La'al Ratty Today

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Skarloey (talk), CC BY 3.0. The journey from Ravenglass to Dalegarth for Boot takes 40 minutes - long enough to settle in, watch the coast give way to wooded valley, and pass the seven intermediate stations and halts along the way. Some, like Miteside, are reachable only by footpath; the Miteside shelter is...

Image: Skarloey (talk) | CC BY 3.0