Attadale railway station

Attadale
Scottish Gaelic: Atadal[1]
A Class 158 DMU departing Attadale for Kyle
Location
Place	Attadale
Local authority	Highland
Coordinates	57°23′40″N 5°27′19″W / 57.3945°N 5.4553°W / 57.3945; -5.4553Coordinates: 57°23′40″N 5°27′19″W / 57.3945°N 5.4553°W / 57.3945; -5.4553
Grid reference	NG924390
Operations
Station code	ATT
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Number of platforms	1
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2012/13	658
2013/14	998
2014/15	784
2015/16	820
2016/17	938
History
Original company	Dingwall and Skye Railway
Pre-grouping	Highland Railway
Post-grouping	LMSR
1880	Station opened
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Attadale from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Attadale railway station is a remote railway station on the Kyle of Lochalsh Line, serving the village of Attadale on Loch Carron in the Highlands, northern Scotland.

History

The station was opened in 1880 by the Dingwall and Skye Railway, but operated from the outset by the Highland Railway.

When the D&SR were forced to cut back the railway during its planning, Attadale was initially chosen as the planned terminus of the shortened line, to allow a suitable location near Loch Carron to build a pier adjacent to the station for steam boats to berth. However, more detailed planning proved this area of the loch quite shallow, which would have meant the large cost of building an extraordinarily long pier. Instead, the line was to terminate 5 miles further on at Stromeferry, where a deeper section of the loch could be found, meaning the steamers could berth more easily and more closely to the station at a shorter, less expensive pier. Attadale then opened as a request stop ten years after the Dingwall & Skye Railway commenced services.

Initially, Attadale station had just a single wooden shelter for passengers, whilst a large red flag was used for signalling the train to stop. Taken into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway during the Grouping of 1923, the line then passed on to the Scottish Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. When sectorisation was introduced by British Rail, the station became part of ScotRail until the privatisation of British Rail.

The station is 48 miles 22 chains (77.7 km) from Dingwall, and has a single platform which is long enough for a two-coach train.^[2] The platform has a simple but covered brick waiting room. It featured in episode one of the Channel 4 documentary series Paul Merton's Secret Stations on 1 May 2016, when presenter Paul Merton alighted there en route to visiting a salmon breeding farm on the shores of Loch Carron.^[3]

Services

Four trains each way call (on request) on weekdays/Saturdays and one each way all year on Sundays, plus a second from May to late September only.^[4]

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Strathcarron		Abellio ScotRail Kyle of Lochalsh Line		Stromeferry

Notes

References

• Brailsford, Martyn, ed. (December 2017) [1987]. Railway Track Diagrams 1: Scotland & Isle of Man (6th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. ISBN 978-0-9549866-9-8.
• 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 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.
• 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 978-1-85260-086-0. OCLC 22311137.
• Station on navigable O.S. map

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