Corrour railway station

Corrour
Scottish Gaelic: Coire Odhar
Corrour station
Location
Place	Loch Ossian
Local authority	Highland
Coordinates	56°45′37″N 4°41′27″W / 56.7602°N 4.6907°WCoordinates: 56°45′37″N 4°41′27″W / 56.7602°N 4.6907°W
Grid reference	NN356663
Operations
Station code	CRR
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Number of platforms	1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2010/11	12,782
2011/12	12,224
2012/13	12,058
2013/14	13,138
2014/15	12,856
History
Original company	West Highland Railway
Pre-grouping	North British Railway
Post-grouping	LNER
7 August 1894	Opened[1]
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Corrour from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Corrour railway station is on the West Highland Line, Scotland. It is situated near Loch Ossian and Loch Treig, on the Corrour Estate. It is the highest mainline railway station in the United Kingdom.

Location

The railway station is one of the most remote stations in the United Kingdom, at an isolated location on Rannoch Moor. The station is not accessible by any public roads – the nearest road is 10 miles (16 km) away. In 1997 a new station house, including lodging for its managers, was commissioned by Corrour Estate. Designed by Law & Dunbar-Nasmith Partnership, it was erected as a provisions shop and restaurant to serve hillwalkers.^[2] After several previous ventures in this location, the Station House was opened again as a restaurant in July 2015.^[3]

At 408 m (1,339 ft) above sea level the station provides a convenient starting point for hill-walkers and Munro-baggers. The station was the starting point for the "Man with no Name" whose body was found in 1996 on Ben Alder and only identified some years later.^[4]

History

Sir John Stirling-Maxwell (10th Baronet of Pollok, KT) purchased Corrour Estate in 1891 and initially used it as a "playground" for gentlemen, primarily focusing on activities such as stalking and hunting.^[5] To make it accessible for his guests, Sir John gave access to the West Highland Railway Company to build across his land on condition that they build a railway station for him on his estate. This station opened to passengers on 7 August 1894.^[1] It was originally built to serve the Corrour sporting estate, whose owners were investors in the railway. Guests visiting the estate for deer stalking and grouse shooting were taken from the station to the head of Loch Ossian by horse-drawn carriage. A small steamer then transported them to shooting lodge at the far end of the loch.

The station was laid out with a passing loop around an island platform and a siding on the east side. Since November 1985, all passenger trains have used the original Down platform. The Up loop remains and is serviceable but it is no longer used by passenger trains. There had been a footbridge at Corrour station providing an exit to the east side, but it was moved to Rannoch railway station following the downgrading of the Up loop at Corrour. Passengers now cross the line by way of a footpath. The old signal box and adjacent building were renovated in 2015.

Services

A train to Mallaig

Corrour station is a request-only station connected by regular services linking Glasgow Queen Street with Fort William and Mallaig. These local services run generally three times a day in each direction, but less frequently on Sundays (twice each way in summer, but just once in winter).^[6] Despite its remote location – Corrour boasts a direct connection to London via the Caledonian Sleeper to and from London Euston (daily except Saturday nights in each direction), The journey from London to Corrour takes just under twelve hours. The sleeper also conveys seated coaches and can therefore also be used by regular passengers travelling to/from both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Services serving Corrour are run by Abellio ScotRail or Caledonian Sleeper.

Signalling

Station view

The signal box, which had 13 levers, was situated to the south of the island platform. From the time of its opening in 1894, the West Highland Railway was worked throughout by the electric token system. The semaphore signals were removed in November 1985 in preparation for the introduction of Radio Electronic Token Block (RETB). At the same time, the loop points came under the control of ground frames. The RETB system was commissioned by British Rail between Upper Tyndrum and Fort William Junction on 29 May 1988. This resulted in the closure of Corrour signal box and others on that part of the route. The RETB is controlled from a Signalling Centre at Banavie railway station.

In popular culture

The station, and the nearby mountain Leum Uilleim, gained fame when they were featured in a scene from the film Trainspotting. It also appeared in the fourth episode of the 2010 BBC series Secret Britain. The station also featured in the Young Guns video for the single "Weight of the World". The station is the primary location in Jos Stelling's film De Wisselwachter. It was also visited by Paul Merton in Episode 3 of his Channel 4 documentary series Paul Merton's Secret Stations.^[7]

The route south from Corrour across the Moor of Rannoch to Rannoch Station itself was used as a filming location in the Harry Potter films where a Death Eater was seen to stand between the rails with an outstretched arm, to bring the approaching Hogwarts Express to a stand for the train to be inspected. Warner Brothers spent a couple of days with equipment based at Rannoch to facilitate the filming sequences.

References

1. Butt (1995)
3. Corrour Station House Restaurant.
4. Rafferty, Jean (5 January 2002). "Death of a knight Errant". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
5. About Corrour
6. GB eNRT May 2016 Edition, Table 227 (Network Rail)
7. Channel 4 Programme Information website; Retrieved 16 May 2016

Sources

• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199.
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0086-1. OCLC 22311137.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 0-9068-9999-0. OCLC 228266687.
• Yonge, John (May 1987). Gerald Jacobs, ed. British Rail Track Diagams - Book 1: ScotRail (1st ed.). Exeter: Quail Map Company. ISBN 0-9006-0948-6.
• Yonge, John (February 1993). Gerald Jacobs, ed. Railway Track Diagams - Book 1: Scotland and the Isle of Man (2nd ed.). Exeter: Quail Map Company. ISBN 0-9006-0995-8.
• Yonge, John (April 1996). Gerald Jacobs, ed. Railway Track Diagams - Book 1: Scotland and the Isle of Man (3rd ed.). Exeter: Quail Map Company. ISBN 1-8983-1919-7.
• Yonge, John (2007). Gerald Jacobs, ed. Railway Track Diagams - Book 1: Scotland & Isle of Man (Quail Track Plans) (fifth ed.). Bradford on Avon: Trackmaps (formerly Quail Map Co). ISBN 978-0-9549866-3-6. OCLC 79435248.

• Scotland: the Movie Location Guide – Trainspotting, Rannoch Moor Information on the station as it appears in "Trainspotting".
• Corrour Further details on the station.
• Hidden Europe magazine – an article about Corrour from Hidden Europe magazine
• Article on the station by Ian Futers, four pages including track plan, photos, and description in Railway Modeller magazine for April 2008

Further reading

• "Scottish guest house owners bombarded with requests to use their lavvy". As It Happens. CBC. 9 May 2014. Retrieved 10 May 2014.

External links

• Annotated video of Corrour station and restaurant
• Media related to Corrour railway station at Wikimedia Commons