Beeching's Legacy

Thursday's Guardian Country Diary describes a walk along a section of disused railway line between Romaldkirk and Cotherstone in Teesdale, which now forms part of the Tees Valley Railway Path.


When I was a kid I went to school on the train every day. I travelled on electric trains but those were still the dying days of steam and I can still recall the sound and the smell of steam locomotives like these thundering through the station while I waited for my sedate electric train to arrive. Along with my mates I often stood on the footbridge while the fire-breathing, steam-snorting monsters passed underneath.

The mainline steam trains are now a distant memory - and so are many of the rural railways that were axed in the Beeching closures in 1963.

This is what the rail network looked like before Beeching ......

...... and this was what remained when he'd finished his work.



But it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and many of the old railways lines whose tracks have been lifted are now excellent footpaths that pass through some spectacular countryside and have often become unofficial nature reserves. 

Here are some pictures of some fine local examples:





The Tees Valley Railway Path photographed in high summer this year.

A wonderfully festive hawthorn berry crop along the route this winter ...

..... with plenty of holly - Cotherstone village is in the distance.



This is a cutting along the Tees Valley Railway Path near Romaldkirk earlier this year, in February. Drifting snow that filled railway cuttings often brought trains to a standstill when lines like this in the Pennines were still in use.






The footpath along the old railway line that runs through the nature reserve at Smardale Gill in Ravenstonedale, Cumbria ....



.... where the Smardale Gill viaduct carries the line through the limestone grassland.






This is the same line, but this time on the eastern side of Kirkby Stephen, where the line travelled eastwards across the notorious Stainmore Summit - the highest railway in England.

The line east of Coxhoe in County Durham, with magnesian limestone embankments rich in wild flowers and butterflies.

And finally, the railway path through the Derwent Country Park near Gateshead, where you can walk on the track bed of the old Derwent Valley Railway through woodland to the Nine Arches viaduct and watch red kites soaring overhead.

Early Summer in Teesdale

Some pictures taken around Romaldkirk in Teesdale today.

This year has produced some of the finest displays of hawthorn blossom that I've ever seen - but here's something strange. The two hawthorns that you can see in the picture above were once part of an old hedge, so are of more or less equal age. But whereas the tree in the centre has so much blossom covering its branches that it looks like an iced wedding cake, the hawthorn on the left has almost none at all (double click for a larger image). Maybe it flowered and fruited heavily last year and is having a year off...

Early June sees wood cranesbill, in the foreground, coming into bloom, while all the pastures are full of buttercups.

The curlews have chicks now, so when you walk through the fields the parent birds do their best to lure you away, uttering alarm calls to alert their chicks.....

... and there are willow warblers everywhere in the alders, searching for food for nestlings.

The old disused railway line between Romaldkirk and Cotherstone. It's a very pleasant two mile stroll between them, with good pubs at either end.



Romaldkirk. All the roadside verges in this part of the dale are frothy with cow parsley at the moment.

Birds of a feather....

Starlings finding a convenient perch on the weathercock of the steeple of St. Cuthbert's church in Cotherstone in Teesdale this afternoon.


Cotherstone is also home of a very fine cheese.