Strathspey Railway

No point on a Bulleid, the injector controls are under the fireman’s seat.

 

Standing was the order of the day back in SR steam days; much easier to get a fairly detailed footplate log!

Bryan

 

Potential for a Bidet?

 

Is there any news on the Grantown extension?

 

What you must first ask is ‘has the devolved government started caring about improving roads and other sensible things that voters want’ the answer to that is still no so any question that follows is also no.

 

Great answer. Very political.

Would you like to explain in some more detail the current status?

 

Yes please!

 

Essentially the Strathspey Railway require Scottish Government to undertake major improvement works to the main road which is blocking access to Grantown, they can then 'piggy back' on this. This work has been 'promised' for a very long time now.
All that has happened in the intervening time is planning permission was granted for a new whiskey distillery, for which the access road has made the Strathspey Railway's task more difficult.
The last magazine stated a pessimistic picture unfortunately.

 

That’s the Gordon & macphail cairn distillery, a striking building and visitor experience, however, you would think that if a road like the a95 needs investment/re-alignment particularly on safety grounds then it’s best to do that before granting permission for a business that gets multiple hgv deliveries now turning across the single carriageway into the access road. But what do I know. You can see on Google maps just how close it is to where the bridge would need to be, whiskey is a big earner for the Scottish economy and the planning authority would likely have seen that road improvement plans weren’t happening any time soon. Would’ve been best for everyone if some heads came together but alas.

If the long wait drives the railway to insanity they could always take a punt at grantown east, a nicely restored station now vacant after being a stint as a cultural centre/restaurant that quickly became a Covid casualty. I’m joking of course, the challenges are even worse getting to that one, I believe it’s been purchased by the Tormore distillery owned by the Singh brothers (of whiskey exchange fame) as the distillery lacks a visitor centre, so hopefully it won’t deteriorate too much before coming back to life.
Before:

As it looks presently, awaiting a new purpose: