A Scottish Interlude
Back in 2005, my wife and I spent a week in the Western Highlands of Scotland, staying at Strathcarron. On the journey there, we called in at Inverness and I managed to find some time to see what trains were in the station area.
Scotrail class 170 in the then Scotrail “Whoosh” livery arriving from the South.
A Scotrail class 158 on the station avoiding line.
Another class 158 arriving from the South.
Another class 158 awating departure for the North. I don’t remember whether the seagull was travelling or not!
From Inverness, we travelled west towards our destination in Strathcarron. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to visit the smallest station on the network – Beauly. The platform is only long enough for the two sets of inner doors on a class 158 so passengers have to be in the right part of the train!
Fortunately, Strathcarron is a passing place on the Kyle line and, at that time, the timetable allowed at least one “passing” to be seen each day.
One problem with a location that only has 3 scheduled trains each way per day is that there isn’t much variety. One way to increase the interest is to indulge in a bit of train chasing.
The Royal Scotsman came through one day in the middle of the week so, once we had seen it on its westbound journey…
.. we had some lunch and started travelling east to get in position to see how far we could chase the eastbound train.
We first caught it to the west of Achnasheen..
.. and then managed to overtake it and catch it again at Achnasheen station.
After seeing it leave Achnasheen it was a mad dash to Garve where we caught it again crossing with a scheduled westbound service.
By that time, we had done enough chasing and decided to head for home, stopping again at Achnasheen to have some refreshment in the delightful tea room by the station.
