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Images of the Far North Line - Old & New


Marly51
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Glorious day today after all the snow and popped down to Lairg Station to take some reference photos...

 

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Lairg Station looking south (Sadly the main station building has a mesh wire fence in front of the original low platform, the platform edge having been broken away. North of the main building the platform was raised, resulting in the lower step of the footbridge being embedded in tarmac)

 

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Waiting Room - Lairg Station (you can see here the original low platform which was typical of some of the Highland Railway Stations. A couple of platform footstools are still available for passengers)

 

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Some shots at the old oil depot at Lairg. The lower image is of the buffer stop on the siding used for loading and unloading livestock. Lairg Livestock Market is nearby to the east of the station. There were two old oil depots at Lairg Station, which were replaced by the third depot in 1969.

 

All of the old sidings track has been lifted and stacked. I have photo prints from 15 years ago, which I shall scan and upload occasionally. At some point I am keen to build up a collection of my own drawings from surveying buildings, which I can also make available to anyone modelling the Far North Line.

Edited by Marly51
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I've recently purchased a digital post-war aerial photograph of the area over and around Lairg Station for our local history society. I am not entitled to post it here as it is for research purposes only, but NCAP may add it to their online catalogue as I understand the licence fee pays for the digitising of the image. In which case, I shall post the link here later. Our archive has a number of old black and white photographs relating to the station but we are still checking out provenance on those which look like they are copies from specific collections such as George Washington Wilson Archive at Aberdeen University.

Edited by Marly51
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I've recently purchased a digital post-war aerial photograph of the area over and around Lairg Station for our local history society. I am not entitled to post it here as it is for research purposes only, but NCAP may add it to their online catalogue as I understand the licence fee pays for the digitising of the image. In which case, I shall post the link here later. Our archive has a number of old black and white photographs relating to the station but we are still checking out provenance on those which look like they are copies from specific collections such as George Washington Wilson Archive at Aberdeen University.

In relation to Lairg M1.2.3.4 1946 DK.pdf a signalling diagram for every bodies interest.

 

kind regards,

 

Robert

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lovely photos Nigel. Wish we could get some refurbishment done on the fenced platform in front of the main building at Lairg Station. The present owners of the Station House have undertaken a great renovation of their building and garden. There are community grants available, so maybe that might be something we could support?

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I am putting together a display, for our local history society, of old photographs relating to the history of Lairg Station and the railway companies associated with the station since it was built by the Sutherland Railway in 1868. More details to follow...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Already posted in 'Exhibitions' - To commemorate the 150th Anniversary of Lairg Station, Lairg Local History Society currently has an exhibition of photographs, documents and railway memorabilia in Ferrycroft Visitor Centre, Lairg. Some models will be added to the display over the next couple of months. (Includes photographs and copies of plans, signalling diagrams, etc from the archive of the Highland Railway Society and the Dougie Kirk Collection, courtesy Robert Dey.)

 

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Yesterday a plaque to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of Lairg Station was unveiled by Sally Mackenzie, the daughter of the last Stationmaster, Jimmy Taylor, who retired in 1968. Lairg Local History Society has been collecting old photos, documents and stories as part of the research for an N gauge model of Lairg Station based on the 1930s/1940s when there were two oil depots, a parcel store, goods shed, coal merchant, livestock loading bay with brickworks and a livestock market nearby.

 

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For modern era fans, my daughter took these photographs at Lairg Station yesterday. The railway gang are working on the track and doing lots of new fencing work to the north of the station.

 

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Unmanned Invershin Station today. The station buildings were gutted by fire years ago. Only the stone shell remains.

Invershin Station was built by the Sutherland Railway in 1868, in the same Highland ‘cottage’ style as Lairg and Rogart.

 

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The remaining supports for the old timber section of platform, with the Kyle of Sutherland viaduct beyond.

 

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Edited by Marly51
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Another couple of small maintenance wagons at Lairg today. Old sleepers in foreground and stack of new rails behind.

 

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Station yard full of ballast.

 

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Photos were taken from the old loading bay which is now overgrown.

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Today I bought an N gauge Highland Bitumens Ltd tank wagon from the model shop in Dingwall. I was speaking to one of the former coal merchants who ran his business with his brother from Lairg Goods Shed - this was during the postwar years and he remembered bitumen being delivered and offloaded for roadworks. Highland Bitumen was refined by Shell at Ardrossan (which closed in 1988) and sent north by rail to sidings at Culloden Moor. The bitumen refinery was originally a WW1 aviation gasoline refinery.

Both Culloden Moor and Tomatin sidings were used by Highland Bitumen of Ardrossan. Culloden Moor's sidings were still in use up to 1986.

The only image I could find online is this one http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3345327 at Culloden. I would be interested to know if anyone on the Forum knows more about Highland Bitumen?

 

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Thanks Jim, I am due to speak to one or two older folk in the community who had railway, station, livestock and brick works connections to try and find out a bit more about operations in and around the station during the last war and the postwar period.

 

Marlyn

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I've just noticed that I captured a little bit of one of the bitumen tankers at Lairg in June 1969.

 

 

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Lairg 25th June 69 C016

 

My other photos of the line are at:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidwf2009/albums/72157626232198549

 

I don't know if any of Ernie Brack's photos (irishswissernie) are any use, they are in his Farther North Line album on flickr, though they may be too recent.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/albums/72157691625089715/page1

 

David

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Thanks Richard and Dave! Will show these to the two gents who worked at the station and the brickworks. We’ve just been contacted by someone, whose family firm built the Lairg Brickworks in the 1930s for Sir Edgar Horne of Lairg Estate - they also built RAF aerodromes, in Scotland, during WW2 - so hoping to have more history to share on this thread.

What a great collection of photographs, Dave. Richard has also been very generous sharing his collection and knowledge of the Far North Line.

 

Marlyn

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Memorabilia from Lairg Station:

The last chalkboard before the station ceased to be manned.

 

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A goods accounts pouch made from canvas with leather straps and double option for closing with an Glasgow Office badge on one side and Highland Lines Lairg badge the other.

 

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That seems to be about it for Highland Bitumens - thanks everyone? Still to check out Anglo American Oil, Scottish Oils, coal, lime, Lairg bricks, livestock, post and parcels... Lairg handled the inward and outward dispatch of all kinds of goods, which were then distributed to the north and west by the bus service provided by the Sutherland Transport and Trading Co., based in Lairg. ‘The Sutherland Transport’ was at one time the largest employer in Sutherland.

 

David Flett has a good photo of an ST bus parked on the track at the parcel shed!

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9003948@N05/17406727386/in/photolist-fQxAQf-nZngjp-8qcMi7-KHyZKQ-oqzUMk-87uNYk-pcYvZt-HwgLCb-2rjo3i-51Dz5J-n3Zor4-6gJ1tY-bp7Ff4-brooNQ-bPXDC6-4sbGeJ-9UAmC1-8CjGwd-9Q1QXy-Toc1w1-ektcfV-caTGJU-4VWnTP-KtZ3S3-GehqnG-4riKeR-bEisMZ-rBp9YE-rGSW9Q-MTLyHg-RnRf5C-bDmM2s-ae3pNL-84nmRp-6FurFe-35kdgg-ae3oDy-adZvet-bPXDiz-6jd63V-NB1vos-TkZoH-eGVQnd-9Uxwea-SQxVUo-9ohZHv-afqzFz-bPXEnT-9YvsWi-swb2Bq

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