Achnasheen Station Photos & Track Plan

[46444]

Out of interest does anyone have a track plan of Achnasheen pre-post RETB in the 1980’s?

 

Photos would be of interest or any good links or recommended reading.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Mark

[Corrour]

Here you go Mark. If you want earlier diagrams or pics drop me a PE.

 

kind regards,

 

Robert

[46444]

Evening Robert,

 

Many thanks for posting these diagrams. Much appreciated....

 

Interesting to see how the layout developed over time.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[Corrour]

You are very welcome Mark.

 

Are you modelling Achnasheen? 

 

kind regards,

 

Robert

[Ben Alder]

Ernies Archives has a good series on the Kyle Line and I find a quick Google often throws up new and interesting images of these backwaters. Am Baile has been busy with their collections as well recently, making a lot of their collection a bit more visible, but it does tend to be of earlier times.

[Marly51]

Mark,

 

There are two good photographs of Achnasheen station on P107 of ‘Highland Railway: People and Places’ by Neil T. Sinclair. One photo is from the Pendragon Collection and the other credited to J.L.Stevenson. Also a photo of Achnasheen Signal Box and local bus on page 108.

Spent many happy evenings in the bar of the Achnasheen Hotel, which was part of the main buildings on the platform, after days out in the hills in the 1970s. Very sad day when it was destroyed by fire.

 

Marlyn

[Marly51]

A few photos here:

 

https://picclick.co.uk/Achnasheen-Railway-Station-Photo-Glencarron-Achanalt-Dingwall-261542154809.html

[NCB]

Mark,

 

There are two good photographs of Achnasheen station on P107 of ‘Highland Railway: People and Places’ by Neil T. Sinclair. One photo is from the Pendragon Collection and the other credited to J.L.Stevenson. Also a photo of Achnasheen Signal Box and local bus on page 108.

Spent many happy evenings in the bar of the Achnasheen Hotel, which was part of the main buildings on the platform, after days out in the hills in the 1970s. Very sad day when it was destroyed by fire.

 

Marlyn

 

Can remember the remarkable collection of whiskies lining the shelves behind the bar. Somewhere around 1977 myself and three friends spent a very comfortable evening there working our way along; it was late October and cold outside. We were camping at the Nature Conservancy campsite near Kinlochewe and the Kinlochewe Hotel for some reason wasn't open. Very sad when the hotel was burnt down; a place of character and centre of the community.

 

Nigel

Edited April 14, 2018 by NCB

[46444]

Are you modelling Achnasheen? 

Hi Robert,

 

Having visited the site a few years ago it certainly made an impression. Sadly I missed the Class 37’s but the station and the surrounding landscape provide plenty of inspiration.

 

There may be something on the modelling front but just research at present.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[46444]

Ernies Archives has a good series on the Kyle Line and I find a quick Google often throws up new and interesting images of these backwaters. Am Baile has been busy with their collections as well recently, making a lot of their collection a bit more visible, but it does tend to be of earlier times.

Thanks Richard.

 

Most useful links. I’ve started looking through Ernies site.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[46444]

Mark,

There are two good photographs of Achnasheen station on P107 of ‘Highland Railway: People and Places’ by Neil T. Sinclair. One photo is from the Pendragon Collection and the other credited to J.L.Stevenson. Also a photo of Achnasheen Signal Box and local bus on page 108.

Spent many happy evenings in the bar of the Achnasheen Hotel, which was part of the main buildings on the platform, after days out in the hills in the 1970s. Very sad day when it was destroyed by fire.

Marlyn

Thanks Marlyn,

 

I’ll have a look out for that book.

 

The loss of the Achnasheen Hotel does sound a sad loss..

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[46444]

Can remember the remarkable collection of whiskies lining the shelves behind the bar. Somewhere around 1977 myself and three friends spent a very comfortable evening there working our way along; it was late October and cold outside. We were camping at the Nature Conservancy campsite near Kinlochewe and the Kinlochewe Hotel for some reason wasn't open. Very sad when the hotel was burnt down; a place of character and centre of the community.

 

Nigel

Thanks Nigel for recounting that tale. Sounds memorable...

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[Kylestrome]

The loss of the Achnasheen Hotel does sound a sad loss..

 

Whether the loss of the hotel is sad , or not, is debatable. When I spent a night in it, in April 1986, it was rather run down and shabby. There were holes in the towels, but the view from my room onto the platforms made up for some of the deficiencies.   

 

Maybe it improved subsequently?

 

David

[Marly51]

Whether the loss of the hotel is sad , or not, is debatable. When I spent a night in it, in April 1986, it was rather run down and shabby. There were holes in the towels, but the view from my room onto the platforms made up for some of the deficiencies.   

 

Maybe it improved subsequently?

 

David

I usually stayed at Gerry’s Hostel in Achnashellach, David, but back in the 1960s - 1980s (when holidays abroad were becoming affordable) quite a few Highland hotels struggled to keep going, often changing hands and becoming run down. Many closed for the winter, so there wasn’t even a pub for the locals outside the tourist season. The Achnasheen hotel and station buildings were quite impressive in the old photographs. When you were cold and wet through, after a day out, any food and warmth was welcome at the end of the day.

 

Marlyn

[Corrour]

Mark,

 

Let me know if you do model and I'll CAD up a couple of replica signal box diagrams for you.

 

R

[keefer]

some John R Hume photos of the station in 1976 on the CANMORE site: https://canmore.org.uk/search/image?SIMPLE_KEYWORD=achnasheen&per_page=31

[Three Miller]

Thanks Marlyn,

 

I’ll have a look out for that book.

 

The loss of the Achnasheen Hotel does sound a sad loss..

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

Hi Mark,

As sad loss indeed, we (two couples with 2 very small children, Steve was 5 months old) spent a glorious week there in 1985. I can still remember the colour of the bath water - Peat colour (straight off the hill side). All Class 26s then with 26035 in the main if memory serves. Very Happy days. 

 

Thanks for rekindling the little grey cells,

Jim.

[NCB]

I usually stayed at Gerry’s Hostel in Achnashellach, David, but back in the 1960s - 1980s (when holidays abroad were becoming affordable) quite a few Highland hotels struggled to keep going, often changing hands and becoming run down. Many closed for the winter, so there wasn’t even a pub for the locals outside the tourist season. The Achnasheen hotel and station buildings were quite impressive in the old photographs. When you were cold and wet through, after a day out, any food and warmth was welcome at the end of the day.

 

Marlyn

 

Yep, the Kinlochewe Hotel when I first knew it around 1976 was an upmarket place. The "bar" was in a separate outside building which always seemed closed. The hotel did have a snug which us sweaty hillwalkers were allowed to lurk in for a pint or two.  It was lucky in that when it was sold it was to a couple who had a good idea of how to run a pub. The main dining room became the bar, with a good fire and well furnished, and a decent range of bar food was available. The outside bar was converted into a walker's hostel. Did good business and is still going today, albeit under different owners over the years. It had just one poor owner, who rarely opened lunchtime because he was out fishing; he and his wife did a moonlight flit, with the banks on his tail.

 

"Hotels and bars of north west Scotland" could fill a book!

 

Nigel

[37409]

I once had reason to be glad of the Achnasheen Hotel's existence back in 1994. I was on a 'Freedom of Scotland' rover with a mate of mine and driven up so we had the car for positioning moves plus somewhere to store the tent/sleeping bag/spare clothes etc. Having placed the car at Kyle and covered the Kyle line for a day or two it was decided to re position it at Inverness to be able to cover the 'down the middle' turns the following day so after we rolled into Kyle on the last train from Inverness, we drove back along the A896/890/832 to Inverness. Having spent the first part of the journey dodging suicidal sheep on the single track roads from Kyle to just past Strathcarron we joined the nice, fast A890 to Achnasheen and ten the A832 towards Garve and Inverness. It was now fully dark and after 10pm, but I had a pair of very powerful spotlights  mounted on my car and they were illuminating the road for miles ahead. Barrelling along the crest of the road at about 70-75mph with great visibility somewhere near Achanalt a fully grown Stag bounded out from the ditch and crossed the road about 50 feet in front of me. I had no chance, there was a loud 'bang', glass everywhere, I had a vision of something coming through the 'screen, a sickening thud and we came to a halt in a cloud of tyre smoke (no ABS). 

 

Luckily (bear in mind no mobile phones in those days) after about 10 minutes a car appeared and stopped offering assistance. As we were about 5 miles from the nearest phone I grabbed a lift with the driver to the Achnasheen Hotel where I could make a phone call for breakdown recovery and have a restorative whisky or two. I grabbed a lift back to the car with some guys with a Landrover who dropped me off at the car, loaded the dead Stag into the back of the 'Rover and headed off to fill their freezer (under Scottish Law if you hit it you can't claim it, but if you find it it's yours...!). Meanwhile my mate has assessed the damage and worked out we weren't that badly off, dents, smashed windscreen and a blown tyre so we got the recovery crowd to drop us at Autowindscreens in Inverness, put the spare wheel on and levered the bodywork away from the wheel. By 9am the next day we were back in business with a dented, but serviceable car. 

 

Very luckily for us (and thanks in no part to me swerving) the Stag had run into the side of the front wing, blowing the tyre and causing its neck to be hit by the windscreen pillar. This meant that it was killed instantly (I'd hate to think what we'd have done had we had to put it out of its misery) and also prevented damage to the front of the car, It also meant that it spun it around causing it to put a large dent in the rear wing as it bounced off but that was a price I was willing to pay to remain mobile. The 'thing' that came through the windscreen was its head and had it been an older male with a full set of antlers the general consensus is that I wouldn't be sat here today and neither would my mate; luckily it was a young buck. All in all a very lucky escape and I was never gladder to see civilisation than when I saw the Achnasheen Hotel with its phone and bar full of whisky..........

 

All in all it was a rather eventful Freedom of Scotland as I broke my left arm behind 37188 two days later but that's another story...........

[NCB]

There's a good few images of Achnasheen station on Geograph:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/browse.php?gridref=NH1658

[4firstimes]

Just seen the traffic on this topic of Achnasheen, the book “The Dingwall ans Syke Railway by Peter Tatlow” has some very interesting diagrams and photos of Achasheen station. Achasheen was a very interesting place in steam days as it was the crossing place for switching of the restaurant car from Inverness to Kyle with the mid day Kyle to Inverness train. The web has a interesting film of the operation.

[46444]

Just seen the traffic on this topic of Achnasheen, the book “The Dingwall ans Syke Railway by Peter Tatlow” has some very interesting diagrams and photos of Achasheen station. Achasheen was a very interesting place in steam days as it was the crossing place for switching of the restaurant car from Inverness to Kyle with the mid day Kyle to Inverness train. The web has a interesting film of the operation.

Very useful. A copy will be sourced from Mr. Carstens.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark

[Portchullin Tatty]

My father's book "The Dingwall and Skye Railway" contains drawings for the viaduct just outside of Achnasheen based on my measuring up.

 

Many of the buildings were standardised down the line so the good shed and signal cabins were the same as those at Garve which are in the book.  The latter will have gone by your time frame, but the goods shed lasted quite a long time.

 

Also, find the film "The Line to Skye" which is often on YouTube - it is amazingly atmospheric.

 

In case you don't know, the hotel was a fire that the insurers did not pay out on; if you know what I mean............!!!

[NCB]

What I heard was that, as is common with hotel fires, the cost of rebuilding the hotel would vastly exceed the commercial value of the hotel, and that the owners were offered compensation related to the commercial value. Don't know how accurate this is.

Edited May 3, 2018 by NCB

[46444]

My father's book "The Dingwall and Skye Railway" contains drawings for the viaduct just outside of Achnasheen based on my measuring up.

 

Many of the buildings were standardised down the line so the good shed and signal cabins were the same as those at Garve which are in the book.  The latter will have gone by your time frame, but the goods shed lasted quite a long time.

 

Also, find the film "The Line to Skye" which is often on YouTube - it is amazingly atmospheric.

 

In case you don't know, the hotel was a fire that the insurers did not pay out on; if you know what I mean............!!!

Hi Mark,

 

Thankyou for your reply. Really useful and informative.

 

Your Father’s book is going to be a birthday present. Looking forwards 2 a good read.

 

Thanks once again.

 

Mark