Boat Of Garten Station

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).

Boat of Garten Station is now the headquarters of the Strathspey Railway Company, which runs trains on the line from Aviemore to Broomhill, and is dedicated to rebuilding the section to Grantown-on-Spey West Station on the former Highland Railway main line from Aviemore to Forres. The station was originally the junction between the Highland Railway and the Great North of Scotland Railway, and the buildings that are visible today reflect its past history as a junction. The station opened in 1863 as part of the Inverness and Perth Railway providing a link to Forres and Inverness. Until the opening of the new cut-off route via Slochd, this line was the main route from the south to the capital of the Highlands.

The buildings are typical of the Highland Railway Company house style, a mixture of stone and prefabricated elements. The GNSR and later the LNER Strathspey line mostly used the eastern side of the station. Other structures included two signal boxes with signals controlling the north and south approaches, a small engine shed, a footbridge and several platform buildings including the station-master’s house. The railway company did not own the immediately adjacent ‘Boat Hotel’. The survival of the station and all the other surrounding structures is entirely due to the dedicated work of the preservation society. Its line connects with the national system at Aviemore where a working steam engine shed can be found, one of the few to survive in Scotland.

Information from ‘Commissioners’ Field Meeting 2007'.