ABSTRACT
After a rural railway line is closed and the track is lifted, the evidence for its former existence slowly disappears. The trackside fences are removed, and the track bed is returned to agricultural use. Embankments become a source of fill material and are levelled. Cuttings are filled with waste. It is the structures that are the most enduring, and isolated bridges are sometimes the only clue that a railway once passed over them. Viaducts are the most dramatic remnants of disused railway lines. Some are widely known because of their scale and location. Low Gill Viaduct on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park must be noticed, if not fully appreciated, by many travellers on the West Coast main line or the M6 motorway, as they approach the south end of the Lune Gorge. According to the observer’s point of view they are either useless masses of masonry, which constitute a liability to their owners and a danger to the public, or important monuments to past engineering achievement.
