THE Ravenglass and Eskdale Miniature Railway has always been about more than taking visitors on scenic seven-mile trip from Ravenglass to Dalegarth.

It was rebuilt to its 15-inch track width during the First World War but started life 40 years earlier to a wider 3ft guage and was designed to carry iron ore and quarry stone.

The story of this life before tourists can be told in much greater detail when £488,000 lottery-funded work is completed later this year on a new and expanded museum on the "La'al Ratty" carpark and backing on to the mainline railway station at Ravenglass.

It is currently a building site with one or two large relics of Eskdale's industrial past - including a large tipping wagon - waiting their place at the new museum.

Items due to go on display include an 1875 saloon coach, one of the earliest survivors of its kind, and the railway's first petrol-powered locomotive Bunny.

In the earliest days of the railway, the end of the line was Boot for the iron ore mines.

You can still walk a footpath which follows the old trackbed.

Closer to the Ravenglass end was Beckfoot quarry which was worked for granite over several decades and the stone moved on the miniature railway.

A museum display board notes: "Although Beckfoor quarry was intended to be simply a source of traffic for the railway, it rapidly dominated the whole enterprise.

"Beckfoot Granite Company amalgamated with the railway and its crushing plant, giving a workforce of 50 security when unemployment in local towns reached 60 per cent during the 1930s.

"The railway had to become very efficient to handled 30,000 tons of stone each year.

"The traack was largely relaid and the worst gradients eased.

"All the locos were rebuilt or repaired largely in the railway's own workshops at Ravenglass.

"From 1931 these were moved to Murthwaite so that the crushing machines could have constant attention.

"Passenger trains stopped for the Second World War but granite traffic continued at full pace, although there were problems with spares for locos, wagons and track.

"In 1949 the rundown concern was sold to a quarrying competitor, the Keswick Granite Company.

"They sent stone to their main quarries and closed Beckfoot and Murthwaite in 1953, removing the equipment and standard gauge track.

"Kesick Granite continued the tourist trains, offsetting losses against other profits.

"In 1958 they failed to sell the railway as a going concern and decided in 1960 ton auction everything.

The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway is open this weekend for the first trips of the new season