Spean Bridge railway station

The station opened on 7 August 1894[3] and was laid out with two platforms, one on either side of a crossing loop. There are sidings on the north side of the station. The station buildings were designed by James Miller.

Between 1903 and December 1933, there was a branch line from this station which offered service north up the Great Glen to Fort Augustus, terminating at a pier on Loch Ness. The North British railway extended Spean Bridge adding a dock platform at the west end at a cost of £303 0s 5d (equivalent to £32,776.53 in 2019)[4] to accommodate Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway trains.[5] The signalling instruments were moved from the I&FA box at the junction to the booking office at the insistence of the Board of Trade inspector.

The I&FA line was not successful. Passenger services stopped in 1933 and the line was eventually abandoned completely in 1947.[6]

The station was host to a LNER camping coach from 1936 to 1939.[7] A camping coach was also positioned here by the Scottish Region from 1961 until all camping coaches in the region were withdrawn at the end of the 1969 season.[8]

On 18 January 1987, the crossing loop was altered to right-hand running. The original Down platform has thus become the Up platform, and vice versa. The change was made in order to simplify shunting at this station, by removing the need to hand-pump the train-operated loop points to access the sidings.

The former station building, now a restaurant

From the time of its opening in 1894, the West Highland Railway was worked throughout by the electric token system.

Alterations in connection with the construction of the line to Fort Augustus saw the original Spean Bridge signal box replaced by two new boxes in 1901. Spean Bridge Junction box was subsidiary to Spean Bridge Station box. The Junction box closed on 20 September 1921.

The most recent signal box at Spean Bridge, which opened on 28 August 1949, was located on the Up platform (which is now the Down platform). It contained 30 levers.

Spean Bridge lost all its semaphore signals on 2 March 1986, in preparation for Radio Electronic Token Block (RETB) signalling. 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 Spean Bridge signal box and others on that part of the line. The RETB is controlled from a Signalling Centre at Banavie railway station.

The Train Protection & Warning System was installed in 2003.

Mondays to Saturdays, the station is served by three Scotrail trains per day in each direction, northbound to Mallaig and southbound to Glasgow Queen Street, along with the Highland Caledonian Sleeper between London Euston and Fort William via Edinburgh Waverley (the latter doesn't run southbound on Saturdays or northbound on Sundays). Sundays see just one train per day call each all year round, with a second in the summer months only (May - September) and the southbound sleeper.[9] The sleeper also carries seated coaches and thus can be used by regular travellers to/from Glasgow Queen Street (Low Level) and Edinburgh.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Roy Bridge		Abellio ScotRail West Highland Line		Fort William
Roy Bridge		Caledonian Sleeper Highland Caledonian Sleeper		Fort William
	Historical railways
Roy Bridge Line and Station open		West Highland Railway		Fort William Line and Station open
Terminus		Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway		Gairlochy Line and Station closed

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spean Bridge railway station.

• Train times and station information for Spean Bridge railway station from National Rail
• Video and commentary on Spean Bridge railway station