Len Clark, 75, of Tebay, a track maintenance man on the West Coast Main Line for 43 years, recalls working during the long, harsh winter of 1962-63.

I HAVE a great memory of the winter of 1962-63 when I was working on the Permanent Way (the track) on the railway.

Starting in December, the temperature at Tebay hardly ever rose above freezing point for 12 weeks.

We were breaking ice on the Tebay water troughs every day for three months. There were about 20 of us, some using hammers and others had bars.

The troughs were about a quarter of a mile long, situated half a mile below Tebay Station.

The job was to keep the ice free in the troughs and keep the drainage holes open, to allow the excess water to flow away. The next morning you could not tell where you had been. The ice kept building up.

It was a miracle no-one got hurt, as every time an express train went past the ice was like shrapnel flying up. We went down the banking with our jackets over our heads.

The Carlisle-Settle Line had no water at Garsdale troughs so a lot of trains were diverted via Tebay and left the West Coast Main Line at Lowghill Junction, meeting up with the Carlisle-Settle Line later on.

Some of the Carlisle drivers did not know that route, so Tebay drivers took over if that was the case.

Then just into March the snow came, with gale force winds blocking roads and causing havoc on the railway around Shap.

A goods train got stuck in the cutting just north of Shap Summit, near the A6 road.

We had to go to dig it out after a train behind it tried to push it out but failed.

We could not get there by road so they stopped a passenger train at Tebay for us.

When we jumped out of it we landed up to our waist in snow. The snow was touching the telegraph wires in places.

They pulled the train out in two halves. We then got another train back home.