THE Settle-Carlisle railway line has partially reopened following a landslide which shut it to all trains last Thursday.

Train services are running on one of the two tracks with a speed limit of five miles per hour beside the site where engineers are carrying out repairs to a landslip. Replacement buses are also running on certain services.

Network Rail’s aerial surveillance confirmed the scale of ground movement in the railway embankment at Appleby, which took place on the evening of Thursday February 4. The line was closed as Network Rail engineers assessed the damage and formulated a recovery plan.

Martin Frobisher, Route Managing Director for Network Rail, said: "Safety is always our top priority. Following an in-depth assessment of the site we have been able to safely reinstate some train services through the area. A reduced service started to run on Saturday and will remain in place while we undertake this complex piece of work.

"Consistent high levels of rainfall had saturated the ground and caused this slip, which affected the stability of the railway through the area. Our aerial footage highlighted the scale of ground movement which led us to close the line as a precaution while we confirmed the next steps to tackle this issue.

Extensive repairs will be needed to fix this and we will have more details of this over the next few days."

Network Rail will continue to work with Northern Rail to keep passengers updated during the work.

Alex Hynes, Managing Director for Northern Rail said: “We are pleased to reinstate a limited Northern Rail Service following Network Rail’s work over the weekend. I would like to apologise to customers for the disruption and thank them for their ongoing patience while the situation is resolved.

“The Northern team will continue to share news via our website and on social media as and when there are more updates to the service.”

Passengers can check for the latest information at www.nationalrail.co.uk.