SCOTLAND - Choose Corrour

With the railway line south blocked by the landslide, I had reconciled myself to the fact I was probably not going to be able to make a trip in that direction. A pity, because I have a tee shirt and I haven't been to the place - which I think is the wrong way to do it .......

I popped into Fort William station this morning and noticed that there was a train advertised to Bridge of Orchy, the last stop before the landslide. The staff told me they were running trains today for people that were stranded at intermediate stations but they were not sure if they would run them tomorrow because of the fuel situation with the two trains trapped at this end of the line. When I say stranded at intermediate stations you will see later on in this post that I am not exaggerating. If I took the 1140 today I could have 3 hours at Corrour while the train went down to Bridge of Orchy and back - that was too good an opportunity to miss.

Why choose Corrour? - well it is the highest, most remote station on the National Rail network, it is literally a platform in the middle of a peat bog. However over 14,000 people a year choose to alight at Corrour and now it was my turn.

I boarded my trusty Class 156 at Fort William, not surprisingly the only passenger, 3 more got on at Spean Bridge, 2 more at Tulloch and all but one of us got off at Corrour - that's the magic of the place.

There are only two buildings at Corrour - The Station House which is a restaurant and B & B (you sleep in the old signal box) and a Youth Hostel. There is no public road, just a dirt track across the Corrour Estate and of course no phone signal. I really can't convey just how remote and therefore how special it is, but hopefully the picture of the station below will get the message across,

So what to do for 3 hours? Walk, soak up the place and just go wow! I walked down to Loch Ossian but the photos don't really do it justice because the moody weather isn't captured very well.

I walked for two hours but this is not a place to miss the train at so I spent the last hour at the Station House where I had a big  bowl of Venison Casserole to keep me going. Very nice!

When the train came back from Bridge of Orchy, it was empty, the 5 of us who had got off 3 hours earlier were waiting to board accompanied by one other person. A lady on holiday who had been staying in the signal box - yes the train was genuinely running to pick up stranded people and I met one!