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The Ribblehead Viaduct, like most places that carry railway lines, is out of bounds to all except those few who work on the railways. But today saw over 2,000 people take a once in a lifetime opportunity to walk across the viaduct.

Arranged by the Friends of the Settle to Carlisle Railway in partnership with Network Rail, the event was designed to promote the railway and raise funds for both the Friends and the Settle to Carlisle Trust.

Planning for the walk started in January and according to the organiser, Ruth Evans, has been a seven-day-a-week job for the past month. And now that the day's arrived she's just so pleased that everything's run just as they had hoped.

Man proposes to his girlfriend

Opening the event was Mike Harding, who came to live in the Dales in 1971, and shortly afterwards fell in love with the line and the romance that surrounds it. Talking about the line, he speaks with great passion, naming men whose lives were spent there; who were part of the line.

And there were passions of another sort raised on the walk too ... one man took the opportunity to propose to his girlfriend half-way along the viaduct, to an audience of friends and well wishers.