THE remarkable survival story of a 140-year-old West Cumbrian transport link was described in a talk by a life-long railway enthusiast.

How the Ravenglass and Eskdale was born, changed and escaped closure threats was told by Peter Van Zeller at a Carnforth meeting of the Furness, Lakes and Lune branch of the Railway Travel and Correspondence Society.

He said: "Eskdale is pretty well miles from anywhere. Why would anyone build a railway there?"

The original line of the 1870s - built to a track gauge of 3ft - was from the main railway line at Ravenglass to Boot where it served iron ore mines.

There was also an incline railway going up the fellside.

He said: "They weren't huge mines but they were expected to be."

All this happened as Cumbria was searched for new sources of a type of iron ore called hematite, which was suitable for the Bessemer process of steel production.

Large deposits of iron were never found in Eskdale and the mines closed in the 1880s, being worked on a sporadic basis to 1909 and again to the end of the First World War.

The choice of a narrow 3ft gauge - like that used in the Isle of Man - more than cut the building cost in half to £30,000.

Passengers also had the opportunity to use the new railway to the hills from May 1875, pulled by locomotives Nab Gill, named after a mine and Devon, named after chairman of the board the Earl of Devonshire

It is a challenging route for drivers and locomotives with more than 100 changes in gradient.

He said: "The landscape is quite dramatic."

On bank holidays all the ore wagons were brought out to provide extra space for passengers wanting to see "The English Alps".

He said: "In the matter of a few years, the railway became an institution."

By 1913 the old railway had let maintenance standards slip and after complaints about safety and an inspection it was closed.

He said: "That should have been the end of the railway."

Salvation came in the form of model and exhibition railway makers Bassett-Lowke which decided to convert the trackbed at Ravenglass to a 15in gauge to run its locomotives.

Despite the labour and raw material shortages of the First World War, regular railway services from Ravenglass to Muncaster Mill were started on August 28 in 1915.

In the 1920s Dalegarth was chosen as the terminus of the line.

Early locomotives used on the miniature line were Katie and Collosus with the River Esk going into Service in 1923.

Its long-term survival was helped by the transport of stone from a quarry beside the line which had a working face 100ft high and which yielded a million tons over the years.

In 1953 the quarry was taken over by the Keswick Granite Company, which by 1960 was so keen to find a buyer for the railway that a public auction was arranged.

He said: "They decided they couldn't wait to get rid of it."

On September 7, just before the planned sale, a group stepped in to buy it - including a Sussex pathologist and a Birmingham stockbroker.

Modern services stick to a 15mph speed limit as the eight-ton locomotives pull up to 150 people - weighing in at up to 30 tonnes.

Much of the work is done by volunteers and a preservation society has helped to introduce new locomotives, including The River Mite and Northern Rock.

Up to 30 people work on track gangs which look to renew around a quarter-mile of track a year