Garsdale turntable and Dandry Mire viaduct

Taken leaning out of a locomotive-hauled train on the Settle & Carlisle round about 1980, this photograph shows the former turntable at Garsdale station and Dandry Mire viaduct.

So high were the winds at this point that there used to be a stockade of railway sleepers around the turntable to prevent locomotives being swung around and around.

Garsdale station serves Sedbergh in Cumbria and Hawes in North Yorkshire, both of which are some miles away.

It's original name was Hawes Junction, the junction being with the Wensleydale line. That has been reopened as a heritage railway between Northallerton and Redmire, though plans for restoring the line all the way to Garsdale seem to have been abandoned.

The distance of Hawes Junction from Hawes gave rise to a Victorian joke:

Vistor: I say my good man, why is that station here so far from the town? 

Local inhabitant: 'Appen they wanted it near t'railway, sir.