ABSTRACT

The Aisgill Disaster The Settle to Carlisle railway, with its impressive viaducts and many tunnels, is a fine monument to the creativity of Victorian railway engineers. It reaches its highest point at Aisgill, almost on the border between Cumbria and North Yorkshire and 1,169 feet above sea level. From the south, trains have climbed the Long Drag through Upper Ribblesdale before entering the Blea Moor tunnel and emerging high above Dentdale. From the north, the line begins at near sea level in Carlisle and follows for the most part the Eden Valley. Aisgill has always been a quiet place, a road paralleling the railway, a few cottages; to the west and to the east, the fells reach over 2,000 feet. It is even quieter now that Aisgill signalbox has gone with a decline in traffic, transferred to a preservation site in Derbyshire. Just north of the summit, the road crosses the railway. At this point, just after three o’clock on the morning of 2 September 1913, there occurred an accident that cost sixteen lives.1