Railway History

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Joseph Mitchell |  Ancient Bridges |  Monuments - Grantown |  Monuments - Forres

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Planning |  Building |  Development |  Snow |  Books |  Old photographs |  More info

The Perth & Inverness Junction Railway

Planning the railway

The Perth & Inverness Junction Railway scheme was put forward to Parliament in 1846, in opposition to the Great North of Scotland Railway which proposed to link Aberdeen with Inverness. It was rejected because of enginerring difficulties. The scheme was revived in 1853, but only to the extent of building the line from Inverness to Nairn, which opened on the 5th October, 1855. This was later extended to Keith to link up with the Great North of Scotland Railway's route out of Aberdeen, being completed on 18th August, 1858. Highlanders continued to work for a direct route from Inverness to Perth, and the Inverness & Perth Junction Railway opened on 9th September, 1863. This intenese period of building continued until 1865 with numerous lines being constructed to the north of Inverness. Take-overs by, and amalgamation of, the main players, viz the Inverness & Perth and Inverness & Aberdeen Junction Railways led to the formation of the Highland Railway around this time. Joseph Mitchell was the engineer for all these lines.

Building the railway

The first turf to start the construction of the 103 miles between Dunkeld and Forres was cut on 17th October 1861. The 36 miles from Forres to Aviemore were opened on 1st June 1863, whilst the whole route was opened for traffic on the 9th September 1863 having taken less than 1 year and 11 months to construct. Even in those busy railway years this was an extremely short time for works of such magnitude. There were 9 contractors involved and cost was £8,860 per mile. (The original estimate being £8,117 per mile.)

The railway required the construction of eight viaducts, 126 bridges over burns and 119 road bridges. The most notable engineering feature of the line is the Divie Viaduct. With a total length of 477 feet (145 metres) it crosses the River Divie on 7 Arches of 45 foot (14 metres) width span each. It cost £10,231 to build. The highest embankment at 77 feet (23 metres) is by Rafford which required 208,000 cubic yards (164,000 cubic metres) of rock and earth to build. Despite rising to 1050 feet (320 metres) above sea level no gradient on the original route exceeds 1 in 70 along the whole length.

Development of the railway

The object of the promoters of the line was to move the produce of the Moray Firth and its shores - sheep, cattle and fish to the south. The railway cut the journey time for livestock from 4 to 6 weeks down to 1 day. 4 years after opening the line traffic had increased to the point where 21,000 sheep were transported in 1 week. Dunphail station was the major loading point for cattle, boasting up and down lines and a goods yard. It is claimed that at the time Dunphail had the longest station platform in Britain.

Snow

The railway crosses high mountains and open moorlands. Snow and winds with the ensuing drifting was an ever present danger. The artic winter of 1880-81 was particulary memorable. On 17th December a train became snowbound south of Dava station and had to be abandoned. The passengers managed to reach Dava station before the storm increased further. The train was completely buried, and when it was located after the storm, the snow was 60 feet (18 metres) above the coaches. An up train, carrying passengers and cattle was also caught on the other side of the station. Whilst the passengers escaped, the cattle refused to leave the shelter of the trucks, and perished by suffocation. A relief train sent to help also became stuck. There were several other storms that winter but none so severe.

Books about the Highland Railway

The information on this page is taken from:
Reminiscences of My Life in the Highlands, Volume 2, by Joseph Mitchell, published in 1884 by the author and reprinted by Lewis Reprints Ltd for David & Charles Reprints in 1971.
The Highland Railway by H A Vallance, 4th edition, ISBN 0 946537 23 2, published in 1985 by David St John Thomas.
The Last Trains (5) North of Scotland ISBN 0 906606 08 X published by Moorfoot Publishing
Highland Railways: People and Places, ISBN 1 85983 453 1, by Neil T Sinclair and published by Breedon books.
Copies are held in the local Forres library.

Old photographs of the Highland Railway

We have put together a short album of old photographs of this section of the Highland Railway. This includes photographs of Grantown Station, derailments on Dava Moor, Dava Station, Dunphail Station and Forres Station including the creosoting works. Photograph album, Railway scenes of the old Forres to Grantown Railway - go there We would like to extend this album, if you have an old photograph you are willing to share please:
write The Dava Way Association,The Hub, 20 Tolbooth Street, Forres, Moray. IV36 1PH
or email: @ The Dava Way Association

Other sources of information

The Highland Railway Society has a brief history of the early development of railway links to Inverness and beyond. The Virtual Vault of the Scottish Archive Network includes an account of the construction of the railway by Joseph Mitchell.