around Morecambe Bay as we cross from Lancaster into Cumbria. Spot the squirrels tucking into bunches of grapes on the cast-iron platform seat ends. They are collectorâs items, much sought after by enthusiasts. Even the names are evocative of this rustic coastline â Silverdale, Arnside, Ulverston.
Arnside station is the starting point for the famous Morecambe Bay walk â a four-mile trek across treacherous shifting sands. If you ask him nicely, the Queenâs Guide to the Sands, a local fisherman, will lead you across. The high point of the journey is wading through the River Kent â the first of five rivers whose waters flow down to the Cumbrian Coast. But no wading is needed if you are on the train â the trip over the Kent Viaduct has been described as like skimming the waters on a seaplane. Ever since it was built, the railway around the edge of Morecambe Bay has always trumped the road route, with no need to divert round the little estuaries. The train progresses in a lordly way past mysterious Holme Island, its secrets protected by a shroud of trees which conceal a full-size copy of the Temple of Vesta in Rome. John Brogden, the consultant engineer who built the line, once lived here, but today the iron gates on the causeway are firmly and intriguingly padlocked. An odd place, since when the tide is out the island is surrounded not by sand but by the invasive spartina grass, now causing an ecological problem as it runs wild in Morecambe Bay.
Some passengers are baffled about the prettiness of the line as we head around the bay towards Barrow-in-Furness. Shouldnât there be some furnaces here, or at least the odd steelworks? âDonât get confused about the name,â says Peter Anderson, a retired council planner who is president of the Cumbrian Railways Association. âFurness has got nothing to do with furnaces. It actually means father of Ness.â Anderson, who leads a band of more than 400 enthusiasts from as far away as South Wales dedicated to supporting the line, meets me on the platform at Grange-over-Sands and briefs me over a pot of tea in the ever-so-genteel Cedar Tea Rooms. âNo minstrels or anything of the noisy order,â proclaimed the 1906 edition of the
Guide to Seaside Places
in its entry on Grange. Clearly not much has changed in this resort, where feeding the ducks in the municipal gardens seems as exciting as it gets.
Even in Barrow, whose fortunes really were built on steel, there are not many furnaces these days, Anderson explains. You are more likely to encounter protectively clad engineers from the nuclear industry. But iron and coal run through the veins, literally, of West Cumbria, and through the veins of the men who developed it. Iron was first discovered by the Romans, Anderson tells me, as he pours the tea, and by the year 1200 was being mined by the monks of St Bees Priory along the coast. It was the reason for the development of a tangle of wonderfully named railways in the area â the Maryport and Carlisle, the Whitehaven and Furness Junction, the Ravenglass and Eskdale and the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith. Giants of the Industrial Revolution stalked the land round here. George Stephenson, designer of the
Rocket
, was appointed by his friend William Lowther, second Earl of Lonsdale, to link the Lowther familyâs mines and factories in Whitehaven to the national rail network in Carlisle. His ancestor Sir John Lowther was known as the ârichest commoner in Englandâ and built his factory chimneys in the shape of his favourite silver candlesticks. But two of Britainâs greatest inventors defined the prosperity of the area and its railways. One was the Cumbrian John Wilkinson, who discovered a way of replacing charcoal with common coal for smelting. Henry Bessemer was an even more prolific genius, inventing a process that could transform pig iron into steel. There was no better ingredient than pure Cumbrian haematite,
Arnside station is the starting point for the famous Morecambe Bay walk â a four-mile trek across treacherous shifting sands. If you ask him nicely, the Queenâs Guide to the Sands, a local fisherman, will lead you across. The high point of the journey is wading through the River Kent â the first of five rivers whose waters flow down to the Cumbrian Coast. But no wading is needed if you are on the train â the trip over the Kent Viaduct has been described as like skimming the waters on a seaplane. Ever since it was built, the railway around the edge of Morecambe Bay has always trumped the road route, with no need to divert round the little estuaries. The train progresses in a lordly way past mysterious Holme Island, its secrets protected by a shroud of trees which conceal a full-size copy of the Temple of Vesta in Rome. John Brogden, the consultant engineer who built the line, once lived here, but today the iron gates on the causeway are firmly and intriguingly padlocked. An odd place, since when the tide is out the island is surrounded not by sand but by the invasive spartina grass, now causing an ecological problem as it runs wild in Morecambe Bay.
Some passengers are baffled about the prettiness of the line as we head around the bay towards Barrow-in-Furness. Shouldnât there be some furnaces here, or at least the odd steelworks? âDonât get confused about the name,â says Peter Anderson, a retired council planner who is president of the Cumbrian Railways Association. âFurness has got nothing to do with furnaces. It actually means father of Ness.â Anderson, who leads a band of more than 400 enthusiasts from as far away as South Wales dedicated to supporting the line, meets me on the platform at Grange-over-Sands and briefs me over a pot of tea in the ever-so-genteel Cedar Tea Rooms. âNo minstrels or anything of the noisy order,â proclaimed the 1906 edition of the
Guide to Seaside Places
in its entry on Grange. Clearly not much has changed in this resort, where feeding the ducks in the municipal gardens seems as exciting as it gets.
Even in Barrow, whose fortunes really were built on steel, there are not many furnaces these days, Anderson explains. You are more likely to encounter protectively clad engineers from the nuclear industry. But iron and coal run through the veins, literally, of West Cumbria, and through the veins of the men who developed it. Iron was first discovered by the Romans, Anderson tells me, as he pours the tea, and by the year 1200 was being mined by the monks of St Bees Priory along the coast. It was the reason for the development of a tangle of wonderfully named railways in the area â the Maryport and Carlisle, the Whitehaven and Furness Junction, the Ravenglass and Eskdale and the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith. Giants of the Industrial Revolution stalked the land round here. George Stephenson, designer of the
Rocket
, was appointed by his friend William Lowther, second Earl of Lonsdale, to link the Lowther familyâs mines and factories in Whitehaven to the national rail network in Carlisle. His ancestor Sir John Lowther was known as the ârichest commoner in Englandâ and built his factory chimneys in the shape of his favourite silver candlesticks. But two of Britainâs greatest inventors defined the prosperity of the area and its railways. One was the Cumbrian John Wilkinson, who discovered a way of replacing charcoal with common coal for smelting. Henry Bessemer was an even more prolific genius, inventing a process that could transform pig iron into steel. There was no better ingredient than pure Cumbrian haematite,
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