THEO STEEL takes a look at traffic on the S&C as the route recovers from a landslip
It is not often that a railway is closed with substitute bus services for such a long period as with the Settle & Carlisle (S&C) route between Appleby and Carlisle between February 2016 and March 2017. Over this period the Eden Brows landslip was repaired at a cost of over £120 million.
This article uses the Office of Rail and Road traffic figures to show patronage before the line was cut in two, during the closure and the 2017-18 station statistics to show the beginnings of a recovery. Also shown are the figures for the intermediate stations north of Skipton and those on the Bentham line, where the service has been upped from five trains per day to seven since May 2018; there is one more round trip contracted to come on this route. The S&C itself also now has eight throughout round trips, with a late evening short out to Ribblehead coming in the May 2019 timetable. The 2018-19 figures will therefore be interesting, albeit affected by Northern strikes.
