Beechings Rambles #3 Snowdrift at Bleath Gill

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Too busy working, walking and skating.

After yesterday's ramble in the mist, I felt compelled to share my findings.

Completely inspired by the Youtube video "Snowdrift at Bleath Gill (1955) 

With my love of enjoying old rail trails, we drove the two and a half hours up to Barras in Cumbria and into low cloud cover.
We managed to find the trail quite easily and joined it just near Clatteringdike Nook where the first evidence of railway paraphernalia emerged out of the mist in the form of an old workman's hut. We decided against the bleakness of an easterly direction and headed towards Barras Station.

After initially reading up quite abit of material on the internet, I would very much like to Thank Alen McFadzean for his interesting blog giving me an insight of what to expect on the walk
https://becausetheyrethere.com/2011/03/24/bleath-gill-whatever-happened-to-the-heroes/
A fascinating and cheerful write up of bygone days. I see he had much better weather for his walk though.

Unperturbed by the mist, we ploughed onward and was thankful for the bridge we crossed early on as the rest had to be negotiated without and I'm far too old for long jump these days.The trail itself was relatively easy going in some places, but grateful for the thankfully absent bovine livestock was rather chewed up in others.












The South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway, thanks once again to Mssrs. Beeching & Marples meant the line closed back in the 1962 so the sound of clickety clack on the track was a distant echo, but for the Wuthering Heights atmospherics was very easy to imagine. In nearly sixty years there was the expected air of crumble and decay, but the romance was still there, especially whilst trying to peer for tell tale smoke marks on the bridge we walked underneath.

The BR Standard Class 2 2-6-0 No. 78018 that gave cause to this story by getting stuck in the snowdrift on 24th February 1955 has thankfully been restored and is I understand currently housed at Loughborough. (Please correct if I'm wrong) 

Whilst the Line originally travelled from Barnard Castle to Kirby Stephen it was only a short section we decided to undertake owing to the inclement weather. As I try and report in my blogs any facilities or conveniences, one has to understand the bleak remoteness of this ramble, there are certainly no public conveniences, but on a plus note, there is layby car parking at54.511169, -2.199981

We continued onwards on past the suspected location of the once stuckfast engine onwards towards Barras where after passing an old railway building in a very sorry state

 

I can't help wondering if this is the site where they found the old the old Bleath Gill Railway sign (see link)
http://www.cwherald.com/a/archive/volunteers-dig-up-bleath-gill-rail-sign.170979.html
A little farther on we found our way well and truly blocked by a "wall that Jack built" where I didn't fancy doing myself a mischief in the damp by trying to scramble over it.

We retraced in a roundabout way our steps back to the overhead bridge and walked via the road down towards Crag Green with a view to reaching the Belah Viaduct, but on this occasion had to make do with the "end of the line" being near the spring that runs under Mousehill Low Bridge and evidence of an old parapet.

  

Whilst we enjoyed our six mile walk, it has certainly inspired me to want to venture up that way again and find the site of the once grand Belah Viaduct and the old signal box.
I've included an image of our rather erratic route caused by a serious lack of decent signage to divert via public footpaths. It would have been alot easier had we had better visibility, but it was still an immensely enjoyable walk. I just with the authorities would embrace it's potential for Tourism instead of it being given over the moss and the cows.