of the Great North of England Railway, and a branch line to Hawes, but this scheme failed. In the late 1860s, several competing railways proposed to serve the agricultural land around Hawes. Eventually, an Act of Parliament raised by the Midland Railway that mostly related to the Settle and Carlisle line but included a branch off this line between Garsdale and Hawes was authorised on 16 July 1866. An Act of Parliament raised by the North Eastern Railway for a railway between Leyburn and Hawes was authorised on 4 July 1870, though work did not start until 1874. The section of this railway between Leyburn and Askrigg opened on 1 February 1877; the section between Askrigg and Hawes was opened for goods on 1 June 1878. The Hawes branch of the Settle and Carlisle line was opened for goods on 1 August 1878; the sections between Askrigg and Hawes and between Hawes and Garsdale were both opened for passengers on 1 October 1878. The delays in the section between Hawes Junction and Hawes was down to the heavier engineering required on this section (one tunnel and two viaducts) with steeper gradients. In the months before the section opened, a landslip at Mossdale required extra work to excavate from the line. At this point, there was a through route between Northallerton and Garsdale. Both companies had running powers over each others' lines; the NER ran passenger trains westwards from Hawes (but no freight) and the Midland only exercised their right to run trains eastwards to Leyburn with occasional excursion traffic. Rationalisation The line remained a single track branch line, except for the double track section between Leeming Bar and Bedale. Chief commodities transported on the line were coal, milk, and stone. One passenger train each way was operated between Garsdale and Hawes until 14 March 1959 at which point this part of the line closed to all traffic, however, freight continued from Northallerton to Hawes until 1964. On 27 April 1964, the line between Redmire and Hawes closed completely. The track west of Redmire was lifted and many bridges on this section of the line were demolished in 1965. Most freight traffic on the line ceased in 1982, with the exception of the limestone traffic from Redmire to Teesside for steel-making, though this freight flow ceased in December 1992 when British Steel switched its limestone source to Hardendale in Cumbria. As