By Roger Lytollis

Last updated 16:06, Friday, 19 September 2008

AFTER a dozen years, £25,000 of his own money, and more consultants’ reports than any man should havwaye to endure, Cedric Martindale’s dream remains stubbornly attached to the drawing board.

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Lesser men might have crumbled under the weight of their own frustration, wondering why the sheer common sense of their vision has not compelled the rest of the world to clamber aboard.

Not Cedric. “You can never tell how long these things will take,” he says. “And I like a challenge.”

In its starkest terms his plan sounds simple: restore the Penrith-Keswick railway line, whose 18 miles were closed in 1972.

This reopened artery would deliver hundreds of thousands of locals and visitors into the heart of the northern Lakes, taking cars off the A66, saving drivers money and helping the environment.

The proposal appears to tick plenty of 21st-century boxes. Yet here we are, more than a decade since Cedric’s “Eureka!” moment, with little to show for his endeavours but some encouraging murmurs at risk of being drowned by a sceptical chorus.

Cedric, a 49-year-old freelance railway consultant who works around the world, has heard the words “pie in the sky” from more than one politician.

So to silence the doubters: how do you rouse a railway from the dead? You try to raise something in the region of £30-50m. You seek approval from the government – which has said it will not fund any new or resurrected lines – and from local authorities, which can afford to do little more than smile or frown at the idea.

“The key is private investment,” says Cedric, from the house in Morton, Carlisle, which is campaign HQ and home to him and his wife.

“A bank puts up the money and a contractor builds the railway, knowing the money is all there so it gets done quickly. Income from passengers and train operators pays the bank back.”

An estimated 100-150,000 people a year used the service before it closed, although passenger numbers were not recorded.

Typical, says Cedric, of a line whose timetable had not changed for decades and which was a model of inefficiency.

It was closed in an era when government transport budgets were geared to roads rather than railways.

An era not so far removed from today, even though laying one mile of rail track costs about £1m while building one mile of motorway costs £25m.

Studies suggest that 250,000 people would use a Penrith-Keswick line now, taking 500 cars out of Keswick every Saturday. An estimated 500,000 gallons of fuel would be saved every year. The price of a ticket should be similar to the bus fare; currently £3.50 one way.

Journey times would be in the region of 25 minutes, depending on whether any of the intermediate stations – Threlkeld, Troutbeck, Penruddock and Blencow – were restored. A link to Rheged is another possibility.

But we’re still stuck on that drawing board, despite “encouraging noises” from local authorities and government agencies.

“We’re now trying to get them to turn those noises into political statements,” says Cedric. “The Northwest Development Agency may be willing to put some money up. Some banks have expressed interest.” Cedric himself has raised about £350,000 for research and development through bonds which pay four per cent interest.

The sceptics, though, feel well armed. The line was ripped up 36 years ago and the track bed is now owned by several different interests. Three miles of it between Keswick and Threlkeld has become a popular foot and cycle path. The biggest obstacle lies near Penruddock, six miles out of Penrith, where the A66 was built across the abandoned track bed.

Cedric has heard it all before and he swats it all aside. The vast majority of track bed is still intact and the owners could sell it back. Plans have been made for a replacement footpath. A new rail bridge over the A66 at Penruddock has been designed as part of a study conducted by Corus.

Several external studies have confirmed the feasibility of the project and its benefits.

And still: no Penrith-Keswick line.

For Cedric the problem is not the idea itself but people’s reaction to anything requiring a blast or two of vision.

He is a pioneer. No axed passenger line in Britain has ever been revived independently and around the country supporters of other extinct railways are watching his progress.

There is no hint of anger when Cedric says: “I have travelled a lot with my work and I’ve found that the British mentality is instinctively negative. People have to find ways and reasons not to do things. An automatic reaction is ‘I don’t know how to do it so it can’t be done.’ It’s quite hard to turn that around.

“A Keswick comparison is Theatre by the Lake. A lot of people were very sceptical about that. Now it’s starting its 10th season. They found the funding, they built it and they’re able to attract people. It’s done all those things because people have taken a positive attitude.”

He regards red tape as a symptom of Britain’s “can’t do” culture. (“Moving earth is easy. Politics and paperwork absorb all the time and effort.”) In 1999 Cedric applied to the National Lottery’s Millennium Fund. He was asked to provide more detail and did so, three times.

“The third time they told us we’d qualified for funding, but unfortunately there wasn’t any money left. That was the week £300m was diverted to the Millennium Dome.

“Then we applied to the Heritage Lottery fund. They said yes, we fulfilled the criteria, but we couldn’t have the money because we didn’t own the land – they turned us down because we don’t own the Lake District National Park.”

What was his reaction? “I wasn’t happy. When I get angry I get angry quietly. I need to walk away for a day or two and come back with a clear head. You sometimes think you have hit a brick wall. But there is a way through, round or over every wall.”

Cedric sees the Government’s absence from funding or organising a revived line as one less pile of bricks to navigate. “It’s probably better that it’s left to be done locally. Once it’s a government project it becomes too big and complex. We don’t have huge committees. We only involve the people that need to be involved.”

Cedric grew up to the sound of trains clacking over tracks by a rural line in Suffolk. With a degree in engineering he joined British Rail, moving to Carlisle in 1986 and running BR’s Currock depot for five years. Stories of the Keswick line intrigued him. What if…?

He has never owned a car, preferring to gaze out of the window on his travels. Work often takes him on train lines deep into the former Soviet Union. Rail travel is making a comeback there, as it is in Africa and Asia.

“All over the world,” he says, “people are realising what railways can do.”

Except, it seems, in his home county. But after such a heart-and-soul investment Cedric is not about to give up, especially when bolstered by the feeling that his is an idea whose time has finally come.

He was recently sent a newspaper article about a railway that has been restored to a small town in France. “It had been gone since the Second World War. Everyone was very sceptical but it opened and it’s carrying three times more passengers than anyone expected. There’s new life in the town. Everyone’s happy. It does happen.”

It could happen to Keswick. The station still exists, largely intact behind the Keswick Hotel. Waiting, like Cedric Martindale, for the day when trains ease in and out of the northern Lakes again.

For more information about the Penrith-Keswick line campaign visit www.keswickrailway.com