The phantom Highland railway line that never was...
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LOST railways evoke fascination and nostalgia in equal measures – speaking to a time when steam ruled the tracks and branch lines echoed to the sound of the approaching whistle.
Many met their fates at the hands of the infamous Dr Beeching – whose report into the future of the railways in the 1960s singularly failed to anticipate the network's surge in passenger numbers of the 21st century.
But not all of the lines had quite such a prosaic end.
This is the tale of the Cromarty and Dingwall Light Railway, which never welcomed a single passenger but came agonisingly close to reality.
Even today there's still physical evidence on the Black Isle.
The line's tortuous tale begins in 1897 when a track running from Dingwall to Cromarty was proposed as part of a wider effort to increase the scope of the Highland rail network.
Authorisation was granted in the summer of 1902, but negotiations with the Highland Railway to allow the new company to run its trains on their track from Conon to Dingwall delayed construction.
When the work finally did begin it – somewhat paradoxically – started at the Cromarty end of the line, stranded many miles from the rest of the network.
Progress was very slow and the company had to seek Extension of Time Orders, first in 1907 and again in 1910.
But by summer of 1914 a full six miles of track had been laid, and other preparatory work such as cuttings at Drumcudden and a bridge near Cullicudden Farm were under way.
Maps of the time were already including the route of the future track.
And then, that summer, World War One broke out.
Valuable resources like metal were needed to fuel the military effort so, about a year after hostilities started, the existing steel track was lifted for use on other projects.
The branch line that promised to link Cromarty to the rail network, and would have featured stations at Alcaig, Culbokie, Drumcudden, Newhall and Cromarty – as well as a host of level crossings at places like Jemimaville – was no more.
Motorists travelling on the mammoth straight on the B9163 west of Resolis Primary School are likely none the wiser that they are using a part of that railway's infrastructure.
But, as the below picture gallery makes clear, not all evidence on the ground has been wiped away by the passage of time.
Wee monuments, as it were, to a railway line that came so close to becoming a reality only to fall at the final hurdle...
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