From Tweed to Thurso

Presenter: Ray Schofield

Hybrid Meeting both Physically at Shenfield Parish Hall and via Zoom

Ray has given us a few talks before and this presentation was one of three that he gives covering Scotland.  Our route this time took us over North British metals from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Edinburgh, Falkirk and Glasgow. We then joined the West Highland Line from Helensburgh Upper through to Fort William and Mallaig. Along the route we were shown photos of steam in its heyday along with more recent photos of preserved steam on the same route. Along the way we visited some long-lost branch lines also traversing the branch to Balloch Pier which was electrified in the early 1960’s and is still operational today.

Following a short virtual ‘Cal-Mac’ voyage on a ferry, we arrived at Kyle of Lochalsh. This was our starting point for a journey along Highland Railway tracks to Dingwell and thence to Georgemas Junction. A brief side visit to Wick intervened (a necessary side trip on today’s Inverness bound Scotrail services) before we reached our final destination of Thurso – the most northerly rail station in the UK.

Ray helpfully included a number of maps in with his pictures which were invaluable in allowing the Sassenachs amongst us to understand the Scottish geography and landscape. Whilst we experienced much of the route before the demise of steam, it was perhaps interesting to note that pretty much the same journey over the same tracks would be possible today.