Continuing publicity .... for a book launch ... more interest in rails in the highlands - Garve to Ullapool
From
The Herald Scotland... It is 130 years ago this year since an Act of Parliament paved the way for the construction of an ambitious but achievable rail link that could have transformed Ullapool and brought a host of potential economic and social benefits.
Devised by Fowler, his son Arthur and a group of well-heeled companions including Lady Mary Matheson of the Lews, widow of James Matheson, co-founder of Hong Kong-based conglomerate Jardine Matheson & Co and owner of the Isle of Lewis and much of Ullapool, the railway could have solved a longstanding problem: how to transport massive quantities of herring being landed by local fishermen to market as fast as possible.
Steamships took too long. Railways were new and fast. A railway, they believed, could have brought prosperity to desperately poor crofters and cotters, opened up the Isle of Lewis to new trade, and helped extinguish troublesome land raids and civil disobedience which had become an all too familiar element of island life.
Branching off the Dingwall-to-Skye line slightly east of Garve station, the proposed track would have powered steam trains upland, following the road past the Black Water river, through the Glascarnoch glen and rising to 900ft towards Braemore Lodge and the estate owned by Fowler, already celebrated as one of Britain’s most acclaimed engineers.
If the scenery didn’t take the breath away from railway passengers, surely the prospect of a steep descent towards the head of Loch Broom would have.
Or, the engineers’ preferred option, a tunnel carved through the hillside which would bring them, blinking, into glorious sight of the mouth of the River Broom sprawling before them. ...
