The Railway Through the Central Highlands

Blackpool, the town where I was born, is a famous seaside resort in Lancashire, England. It had an extensive tramway system so growing up in the 1950s it was natural for me to take an interest in this form of transport and I soon extended this to include the local railways. The two lines into the town were extremely busy with excursion traffic from all over the country arriving on summer weekends.

I acquired my first camera, a very basic Halina compact, in 1966. This wasn’t suitable for anything moving fast but I did manage some railway pictures around the engine sheds and station. I moved to Carlisle, near the border with Scotland in 1968 and began to explore that country. I acquired my first SLR camera, a Zenit B in 1973 before returning to Lancashire in 1974.

The family continued to take holidays in Scotland and I became fascinated by the lines through the Highlands which still retained infrastructure dating back to pre-grouping days. Having acquired a decent camera system (Olympus bodies and Zuiko lenses) in 1980 I set about recording the scene as the trains were still loco-hauled and there was a reasonable amount of freight traffic.

The book is titled The Railway through the Central Highlands and is a pictorial record of the line between Perth and Inverness, originally built by the Highland Railway constituent companies in the 1860s. It passes through beautiful and contrasting landscapes, well worth visiting for the scenery alone.

Perth is an important city built alongside the River Tay,which is world famous for its salmon fishing . The countryside hereabouts is rolling, wooded hills with attractive towns and villages such as Dunkeld with its small white painted houses around its square and a ruined cathedral sited by the river. Further north is Pitlochry, with a dam on the River Tummel which has a fish ladder to assist salmon returning to their spawning grounds. Nearby is Queen’s View overlooking Loch Tummel, once visited by Queen Victoria. Moving north, the line goes through the narrow wooded pass of Killiecrankie, the site of a battle in the first Jacobite uprising of 1689. Blair Atholl village is built around the entrance to Blair Castle, home to the Duke of Atholl. The castle is open to visitors at certain times of the year.

Beyond there the line passes through more rugged and quite desolate countryside as it climbs through Glen Garry to the summit of Druimuachdar (otherwise Drumochter), the highest point on the UK rail network at 1484 feet. After Dalwhinnie, with its famous distillery, the line enters the Spey Valley, passing through Newtonmore, home of the Highland Folk Museum, and Kincraig, site of the Highland Wildlife Park, then on to Aviemore.

Aviemore is a popular all-year resort for the Cairngorm mountains with ski-ing in the winter months and it is the terminus of the Strathspey Railway, a preserved section of the original Highland Railway. This operates through Boat of Garten to Broomhill, with plans to extend to Grantown-on-Spey. In 1898 the Highland Railway built a more direct line from Aviemore to Inverness and this is probably the most spectacular part of the route with a demanding climb to Slochd summit and several impressive and substantial viaducts. The line passes close to Culloden, the site of the last major battle on British soil in April 1746 which ended the Jacobite uprising led by Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie). The journey ends at Inverness, now a city and regarded as the capital of the Highlands.

To accompany the article I have selected seven images, four from the book, two not from the book featuring notable viaducts and one of the attractive countryside through which the line passes.

All photographs by David Price.

Class 37 37420 passes Ballanluig with a mixed freight from Inverness on Sept 8th 1989. This was once the junction for a branch to Aberfeldy, closed in 1965.

Caledonian Railway 812 class 828, built in 1899, leaves Boat of Garten, on the Strathspey Railway, with a service to Aviemore, on Sept 17th 1993. The engine has also appeared in its BR guise, numbered 57566.

K4 61994 The Great Marquess and A4 60009 Union of South Africa on the climb to Slochd summit with the Great Britain Tour of April 10th 2007. Both engines are owned by Mr John Cameron and are no longer in working order.

A HST crosses Findhorn viaduct with the Inverness to Kings Cross working on April 20th 2011. Scotrail currently operate shorter HST rakes on regular services on this line.

A1 newbuild 60163 Tornado crosses the impressive Culloden Viaduct with a southbound tour on June 22nd 2015.

Class 5 44871 passes Slochd summit with the Great Britain IX tour on April 30th 2016. This image is the front cover of the book.

Queen’s View overlooking Loch Tummel, an illustration of the attractive countryside in this area.

The Railway Through The Central Highlands can be purchased from Amberley Books: https://www.amberley-books.com View more of David’s work on his Flickr Account Cop Lane: https://www.flickr.com/photos/144388905@N03/