Saving the branch lines

[chrisiveson]

.........Abortive attempts to save little used lines in Northern Scotland saw the use of an AC railbus for a while.......................

...........................Entering Boat of Garten, Strathspey platform with a train for Craigellachie........................................


............................An express for Inverness passes on the main line heading for Dava summit and Forres.........................


What looks like just a normal double track line is actually two separate lines. The track nearest the camera being the main line to
Forres and the far line, the GNSR line to Craigellachie.


.....................................................Crossing the Spey on the way to Grantown...................................................

Chris.

P.S. At the age of 13/14 I actually travelled on a railbus in the Highlands, with a weekly rover card costing the princely sum of ten shillings, and by this time
all main line trains used the new line and steam had already gone, replaced with EE type 4s, Derby Sulzers and Birmingham Sulzers.
To the younger members of our comunity, that's Cl.40, Cl24 & Cl 26.

[alanch]

Lovely stuff Chris - I remember when they were based at Stratford for a time, and I used to see them outside the new diesel shed there.

[LeeEAS]

Great! I only went on the Strathspey Railway two weeks ago as well, I even stayed in Grantown-on-Spey

[ARG706]

Little used? All the rails look pretty shiny to me

[rlmathers]

All Highland Railway staff were issued from 1897 to 1934 with a tin of Brasso, 12 dusters, 6 in use, one per day and 6 in the wash. No polishing on the Sabbath.
Sidings rails were only polished at the discretion of the Station Master, usually when someone was found loafing about.
The rails used to gleam, unfortunately no suitable rail texture exists for MSTS.

[Zackybong1]

Lovely stuff Chris - I remember when they were based at Stratford for a time, and I used to see them outside the new diesel shed there.

Wasn't that the Waggon und Maschinenbau railcars at Stratford? I think the ACs were confined to the Western and Scottish regions.

[alanch]

Lovely stuff Chris - I remember when they were based at Stratford for a time, and I used to see them outside the new diesel shed there.

Wasn't that the Waggon und Maschinenbau railcars at Stratford? I think the ACs were confined to the Western and Scottish regions.

You're taxing my ageing memory now Zack, so I pulled out my 1960/61 Combined Volume to check, and it looks like you are correct. Some of the Western ones are underlined, but I could have seen them anywhere on the Western region. The only ones on the Eastern region were from Waggon und Maschinenbau as you say.

[jbilton]

http://www.railcar.co.uk/hisOthers/WMops.htm

http://www.railcar.co.uk/hisOthers/ACops.htm

Don't know why....... but I liked the look of the Bristols best.

http://www.railcar.co.uk/hisOthers/bristolintro.htm

Cheers
Jon

[tango4262]

Forgive me for saying this but i think the national conversions were the best as i grew up using the road bus version of these buses when they were under stagecoach coastline, can't beat the sound one of those creates.



Brilliant shots Chris

[Zackybong1]

You can still ride the W&M one on the North Norfolk Rly. It sounds fantastic, really throaty compared with those Leyland nonsense! You can't hear each other talk when the W&M railbus sets set off from Sheringham.

Thats what made me think. I downloaded the AC one years ago, but it fell from use.