

Stainmore Summit is the
highest point on the trans-
Pennine South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway, also known as the ''Stainmore Railway'' in
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...
. Located on
Stainmore
Stainmore is a remote geographic area in the Pennines on the border of Cumbria, County Durham and North Yorkshire. The name is used for a civil parish in the Eden District of Cumbria, England, including the villages of North Stainmore and South ...
between
Barras Barras may refer to:
Places
* Barras, Cumbria, England
* Barras, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France
* Barras, Piauí, Brazil
* Duas Barras, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
* Sete Barras, São Paulo, Brazil
Other uses
* Barras (surname)
* Barras (market), ...
and
Bowes
Bowes is a village in County Durham, England. Located in the Pennine hills, it is situated close to Barnard Castle. It is built around the medieval Bowes Castle.
Geography and administration Civic history
Bowes lies within the historic count ...
stations, the railway over the summit was the highest in England at until its closure in 1962. The location was marked by a famous
cast-iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
sign which is now preserved at the
Darlington Railway Centre and Museum
Head of Steam, formerly known as the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum, is a railway museum located on the 1825 route of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which was the world's first steam-powered passenger railway. It is based inside the ...
.
Whilst there wasn't a station at Stainmore, trains did halt here to let relatives of the railway workers on and off the trains to enable them to get transported off the summit. The railway had several cottages at the summit.
This pass is commonly referred to by geographers as the Stainmore Gap.
References
External links
Photographs of the summit railway* {{cite web, url=http://www.evr.org.uk/stainmore_summit.htm, title=More photographs of the summit, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070112040240/http://www.evr.org.uk/stainmore_summit.htm, archivedate=12 January 2007
South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway
Rail transport in Cumbria
Mountains under 1000 metres
Mountains and hills of the Pennines
Eden District