One For Mark: Garve Station

For many years I have been meaning to photograph this station with its extra wide gap between the two railway lines. I had been told nearly 40 years ago when passing with a colleague who was a train enthusiast that the gap was to enable fishing boats carried on goods trains to pass. Having plenty of time when going for the ferry on Monday last with CJ I stopped and took some photos.

The following is an extract from the Highland Regional Council's website entitled Am Baile:

Garve is one of the stops on the Skye Railway which opened in 1870. The station was designed by Murdoch Paterson and has a fine lattice-sided foot bridge across the line. 

A feature of the station is that there is a particularly wide gap between the up and down lines. The original plan for the Skye Railway was not just to carry passengers, goods and fish between east and west but to transport fishing boats as well. This was to avoid the dangers of the journey round the north of Scotland. There was the safer alternative of the route through the Caledonian Canal but this was expensive. The idea was that vessels would be craned out of the water at the Dingwall Canal on to special wagons and transported across the country to be lowered in to the sea at Strome Ferry. The extra wide gap at Garve was to allow the boat trains to pass other passenger and goods trains safely. The cranes were ordered and it was hoped that the railway would be ready for the early summer when the fishing fleet needed to be moved. However when it became clear that the railway would not open until July the cranes were postponed until the following year. That was the last that was heard of the "Fishers' Boats" scheme, the only legacy the gap at Garve Station. 

Garve had the possibility of becoming a major junction. Twice in the late nineteenth century plans were proposed to build a railway line from Garve to Ullapool. In 1890 the route was given Royal Assent but disagreements between the rival railway companies meant that it never came to fruition.

Looking East to Inverness

Looking west to Kyle of Lochalsh and Skye 

The Proof

David took the view that in order actually to believe my last posting those who know me would need proof that I really had been on a bus. So here are a couple of photos that David took. The first one's on the local bus on the first part of our journey and the second is waiting for the bust from the Airport to the station in Bordeaux.

The Question Answered

I posed the question a few days ago as to what the thing in this photo is.  You will, if you have read the comments, already know from Spesh’s comment that they are, indeed, bus shelters.  Many years ago the Council for the Western Isles (the Outer Hebrides) decided that bus shelters were needed.  The then Council Architect decided that the item on the right was what was needed.  There was shelter from the wind and rain in every direction and they were self-cleaning by the rain.  The Councillors were not convinced but many were built and, as they are virtually indestructible, remain today.  Synflame had a point, of course, sheep (and people with too much drink to dispose of) also found them attractive.  Unfortunately people, on the whole, did not.  Nowadays more conventional shelters are built.