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Sidings in the Highlands past Invergordon

CosieM8

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29 Feb 2024
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Invergordon
Hi there guys, I'm working on a project and am wondering if anyone has a definitive list of all the sidings and their locations on the Highland railway headed north towards Wick? I've tried piecing one together using Railscot.co.uk but all the locations are not categorised and there are too many to go through. any help would be appreciated.
 
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Gloster

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4 Sep 2020
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Up the creek
Do you mean each individual siding at each and and every location, or do you mean which locations had sidings (without further enumeration) or only sidings separate from stations? Do you mean now or throughout the history of the line?
 

CarrotPie

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18 Mar 2021
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̶F̶i̶n̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ Northern Sweden
Hi there guys, I'm working on a project and am wondering if anyone has a definitive list of all the sidings and their locations on the Highland railway headed north towards Wick? I've tried piecing one together using Railscot.co.uk but all the locations are not categorised and there are too many to go through. any help would be appreciated.
I'd suggest the relevant Quail maps, and perhaps Google Earth.
 

CosieM8

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29 Feb 2024
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4
Location
Invergordon
I'd suggest the relevant Quail maps, and perhaps Google Earth.
will look into the Quail maps thank you. have spent the last few days on Google Earth and the quality isn't quite good enough for me to identify them. thanks for the help.

Do you mean each individual siding at each and and every location, or do you mean which locations had sidings (without further enumeration) or only sidings separate from stations? Do you mean now or throughout the history of the line?
I'm only looking for current sidings if they are usable. each and every one that is currently usable.
 

waverley47

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17 Apr 2015
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501
Might be a bit of a long watch, but there are cab ride videos on YouTube that might also be a benefit to you.

This one is from ten years ago, but not much will have changed I suspect.

I'd also direct you to look at the Lairg oil sidings, but I don't know when they were last used. Perhaps @Altnabreac might be able to help out there.
 

Alex Mihai

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Joined
12 Dec 2018
Messages
20
OpenStreetMap and its railway-oriented counterpart OpenRailwayMap show sidings and their names (although you have to manually search for them at each location). Their names appear to show more clearly on OpenStreetMap.
 

CosieM8

New Member
Joined
29 Feb 2024
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4
Location
Invergordon
Hi guys, thanks everyone for the help. I think with the combined OpenRailwayMap suggested by Alex, The Raildar maps and all other suggestions I will be able to cross reference enough to get this done. once I have completed my list I will post another comment to ensure anyone else needing this can access it.
 

Gloster

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4 Sep 2020
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Up the creek
My 2009 edition of Trackmaps shows sidings at all the loops except Rogart; all are out of use except Helmsdale and Forsinard. There are sidings at Thurso and Wick, with the latter out of use. There are sidings just north of Invergordon, at Fearn and Altnabreac, with the two latter marked out of use.

There is considerable work going on at Lairg, but it is unclear if this will see the sidings returning to use. However, I can’t find anything on the Friends of the Far North Line site and the Highland Railway Society is also wondering.
 

CosieM8

New Member
Joined
29 Feb 2024
Messages
4
Location
Invergordon
My 2009 edition of Trackmaps shows sidings at all the loops except Rogart; all are out of use except Helmsdale and Forsinard. There are sidings at Thurso and Wick, with the latter out of use. There are sidings just north of Invergordon, at Fearn and Altnabreac, with the two latter marked out of use.

There is considerable work going on at Lairg, but it is unclear if this will see the sidings returning to use. However, I can’t find anything on the Friends of the Far North Line site and the Highland Railway Society is also wondering.
Thanks a lot for this, lots of really helpful stuff.
 

Cheshire Scot

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24 Jul 2020
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1,340
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North East Cheshire
My 2009 edition of Trackmaps shows sidings at all the loops except Rogart; all are out of use except Helmsdale and Forsinard. There are sidings at Thurso and Wick, with the latter out of use. There are sidings just north of Invergordon, at Fearn and Altnabreac, with the two latter marked out of use.

There is considerable work going on at Lairg, but it is unclear if this will see the sidings returning to use. However, I can’t find anything on the Friends of the Far North Line site and the Highland Railway Society is also wondering.
That sounds like a good start, sidings at the north of Invergordon included the Aluminium works on the down side and the Distillery on the up side. I pretty sure at one time there was a Harbour branch too, I think from the station area, a flat crossing of the then A9 which went through the town (happy to be corrected but that rings a bell).

An extract from the 1987 Quaill is attached - interestingly that edition makes no mention of Copyright although a more recent one minus some of this detail does!

Glenmorangie Distillery also had a siding, 1.25 miles north of Tain, I recall it in use in the 1960s, on the down side, a single siding with loading bank. It closed in 1970 and was subsequently removed and Google Earth suggests the site is now under a roadway and the bonded warehousing which are now much more extensive than back then.

I think there is a 1960s video (cine) on You Tube which may be helpful
 

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Railsigns

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15 Feb 2010
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An extract from the 1987 Quaill is attached - interestingly that edition makes no mention of Copyright although a more recent one minus some of this detail does!
Copyright applies automatically, irrespective of whether it's mentioned in the publication.
 

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