Publication Account
Date 1995
Event ID 1016695
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016695
The name 'Boat of Garten' comes from an old ferry across the Spey. Boat of Garten railway station was opened in 1863 by the Inverness and Perth Junction Railway, later part of the Highland Railway. It has a wooden single-storey station building with slated roof and a stone station-master's house adjoining, both built in 1904 to replace others in a similar style which had burnt down. The typical iron footbridge was cast in the Rose Street Foundry, Inverness, in 1900; it comes from Dalnaspidal and replaces an identical bridge removed in 1960. Boat of Garten was a junction between the Highland Railway and a branch of the Great North of Scotland Railway joining the line to Elgin at Craigell achie, and as such had th ree platforms and two signal boxes. From 1863 the main line north from Perth ran through Boat of Garten and on to Grantown-on-Spey, Nairn and Inverness, until a new direct line from Aviemore to Inverness via Carrbridge was opened in 1898.
The line from Aviemore to Boat of Garten, closed by British Rail in 1965, has been reopened as an 'operating museum of steam traction' by the Strathspey Railway Company, who run a steam train service in the summer months. The line still uses semaphore signals. Their oldest locomotive was built in 1899 for the Caledonian Railway, and among the rolling stock is a Highland Railway brakevan of the 1870s. A railway museum is housed in some of the restored buildings at Boat of Garten (part of this is across the footbri dge). At Aviemore, where restoration work by volunteers continues, a new station has been constructed in the old locomotive yard (NH 897129). The station building has been moved from Dalnaspidal and the original engine shed reopened. Locomotives a reagain housed and maintained there. The journey from Aviemore to Boat of Garten takes just over 15 minutes, and runs through some attractive wooded countryside with the Cairngorms In the background. The ultimate aim of the Strathspey Railway Company is to reopen the next section of line to Grantown-on-Spey.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Highlands’, (1995).