The story of this military railway begins with the opening of the Richmond Branch in 1845 built mainly because of the lead mining in Swaledale and then extended to Eryholme Junction. Although Baden-Powell had surveyed the area in 1908 looking for suitable places for a large army camp it was not until 1914 that men appeared with theodolites surveying for a railway line to the earmarked site. The route of the military railway, four and a half miles in length, is described in one chapter.