The route, which crosses the remote, scenic regions of the Yorkshire Dales and the North Pennines, runs between Settle Junction, on the Leeds–Morecambe line, and Carlisle, near the English-Scottish borders.

Stations serve towns such as Settle in North Yorkshire, Appleby-in-Westmorland in Cumbria and small rural communities along its route.

To celebrate the reopening, the first regular mainline scheduled service in England for nearly half a century ran with a steam engine.

The situation was not ideal, as the LNWR handled the through carriages of its rival with deliberate obstructiveness, for example attaching the coaches to slow goods trains instead of fast passenger workings.

[citation needed] A plaque in St Leonard's Church, Chapel-le-Dale, records the workers who died, both from disease and from accidents, while building the railway.

[10] A memorial stone was laid in 1997 in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Mallerstang to commemorate the 25 railway builders and their families who died during the construction of this section of the line, and who were buried there in unmarked graves.

The terrain traversed is among the bleakest and wildest in England, and construction was halted for months at a time due to frozen ground, snowdrifts and flooding.

[11] The line was engineered to express standards throughout – local traffic was secondary, and many stations were miles from the villages they purported to serve.

The swampy ground meant that the piers had to be sunk 25 ft (8 m) below the peat and set in concrete in order to provide a suitable foundation.

The remains of the navvies' camp at Rise Hill Tunnel were investigated by Channel 4's Time Team in 2008, for a programme that was broadcast on 1 February 2009.

It was regarded as a duplicate line, and control over the through London-Glasgow route was split over several regions which made it hard to plan popular through services.

Such closure is referred to in paragraph 40 of the official report into the accident involving two goods trains between Horton-in-Ribblesdale and Selside on 30 October 1968, by Lt.

Even if the Settle and Carlisle line were planned to form part of the long term railway network of the country, it would still come fairly low in the priority list for installation of AWS; this route, however, is planned for closure within the next few years ..." In May 1970 all stations except for Settle and Appleby West were closed, and its passenger service cut to two trains a day in each direction, leaving mostly freight.

[17] As late as August 1988, the British Rail Board posted notices stating they had appointed Lazard Brothers to 'advise on the sale of the Settle–Carlisle line'.

[19] In 2009, a statue of the border collie Ruswarp (pronounced Russup) was sited on the platform of the refurbished Garsdale railway station.

The former regional franchisee Arriva Trains Northern initiated a twice daily Leeds–Glasgow Central service in 1999 (calling at Settle, Appleby, Carlisle, Lockerbie and Motherwell).

The service was withdrawn at the behest of the Strategic Rail Authority in 2003,[22] and there remains no link from Yorkshire or the East Midlands to Glasgow over the line.

Major engineering work was needed to upgrade the line to the standards required for such heavy freight traffic and additional investment made to reduce the length of signal sections.

In July 2009, work to stabilise a length of embankment near Kirkby Thore and remove a long-standing permanent speed restriction was undertaken.

However, as the line is not electrified, electric trains such as Pendolinos need to be hauled by diesel locomotives (typically a Class 57 Thunderbird) along the diversion section.

Michael Portillo, the Minister of State with responsibility for railways in the Thatcher government of the time (and who made the official announcement regarding the line in parliament) attended the celebrations.

[27][28][29] From April 2016, Arriva Rail North Ltd took over all passenger services on the line from the previous operator which was run by Serco & Abellio.

Five of the fourteen tank wagons in the consist left the rails, damaging the track, signalling equipment and river bridge.

[35] The stranded wagons (one of which toppled into the river) were recovered in mid-November using a heavy lift crane, after which the bridge was repaired/reinforced and new track, points and signal cables were installed to replace those damaged in the accident.

Classes of LMS locomotive that have run over the line vary from express to mixed traffic, such as Black Fives, Jubilees, Coronations, Princess Royals and even goods engines like the 8Fs.

In July 2015 it was announced that the stone quarries at Arcow and Dry Rigg would be reconnected to the line via north facing points.

[39][40] Plans are also in place to reconnect the neighbouring Horton Quarry, via relaid sidings immediately south of Horton-in-Ribblesdale station, which were last used in the early 1980s.

[44] Repairs to the affected section entailed building a 100m-long piled retaining wall and support platform for the track and stabilising the embankment beneath it; work began in July 2016 and was completed in March 2017.

[45] The line between Appleby and Armathwaite was reopened to traffic on 27 June 2016 on a temporary timetable;[46] the repair project was estimated to cost £23 million.

In March 2016 a fifty-minute colour documentary "The Long Drag", made in 1962-3 was released for free viewing on the British Film Institute website.