West Highland Line, Helensburgh and Back Again

Helensburgh to Glenfinnin, June 15, 1999

Upper Helensburgh Train Station

My journey began at the Upper Helensburgh train stop. Helensburgh has a proper train station know as Helensburgh Central which is located down in the middle of the town. Helensburgh Upper is really just a train stop located about 10 blocks up the hill. It's a lovely little train stop situated between two embankments that are covered on both sides by wild Rhodendrum bushes. The bushes are in full bloom at this time of year so my brief wait for the train was very pleasant. The day was warm and sunny and two rooks carrying on a noisy conversation in a nearby tree provided the entertainment.  Sadly this station is no longer in use and I was too enamored with my surroundings to take a picture of it at the time.  I bagged this photo off wikipedia to show how it looked at the time of this journal entry.

Rannoch Moor from back of train

The trip from Helensburgh to Malig takes four ½ hours. I have taken this trip in the past and was totally unimpressed with Malig. It's a very small fishing port and it smells distinctly "fishy." Unless you live there, as far as I can tell the only reason for going there is that it is the end of the line of what the National Geographic Society has designated one of the Great Train Trips of the World, and it is a connection point for a ferry that runs between Malig and Skye. So, having no great desire to be stuck for a couple of hours in a fishy smelling town I decided to detrain (is that a word?) at Glen Finnan, four stops before Malig. Glen Finnan was the landing place of the Bonny Prince in 1745 for his ill-fated campaign to regain the throne for the Stuarts. According to the brochure, there is a Monument, a Visitors Center, a restaurant, and a Train Museum. More about this later.

The train arrived and off we started. The first stop was Garelochhead, at the head of Loch Long. A group of 10 year old school children heading out on a field trip got on our coach. At first it looked like there were at least 100 of them but after counting heads there turned out to be only 23. They were very good actually, the only stir they caused was when a few minutes after they got on, all three of the accompanying teachers suddenly leapt up out of their seats and started saying "no, no, it's not time for that yet." It seems that just about every one of them had gotten their packed lunches out and were starting to chow down. It was 9:30 a.m.! The only other excitement they caused was a burping contest between most of the boys and a couple of the girls. The teachers put an end to that as well.

There was a group of young people on our coach who were going Monro Bagging. According to my informant, one of the young lady Monro Baggers, there are 280 mountains in Scotland that are between 3,000 and 5,000 feet high. These are known collectively as The Monro's. Climbing them is called Bagging. Monro Bagging is a very "in" thing for sports minded young people and discussing how many Monro's you have bagged, which ones, and in what kind of weather is a subject of many discussions in local pubs. The picture on the right is my Grandson Matthew on Ben Nevis that I took in 1995, but we were not Monro Bagging. We had cheated and taken the ski lift to the summit, but he is representative of what the kids on the train were dressed like with the exception of his shoes. The shoes he wore on that trip had to be seen to be believed.

photo bagged from Wikipedia

The scenery on this trip is absolutely breathtaking. The picture on the left is the Glenn Finnin Viaduct which is featured in the Harry Potter films. If I remember correctly, they fly over it in the car chasing the train in The Chamber of Secrets. I did not have my handy digital camera at the time I made these trips so the quality of my pictures is going to be pretty hit and miss. They are a collection of the ones I took with my cheap Wal Mart camera and pictures that I had taken years before on previous trips.
The next stop on the line was Arrochar at which point the track began to follow along Loch Lomand, one of the prettiest loch's in Scotland. After leaving Loch Lomand, the next stop was Ardlui. At that point the train started to seriously climb. You could plainly hear the engines going into a strain. Up too now masses of purple Rhodendrum grew wild along the tracks. After we started to leave sea level and start up into the highlands the Rhodendrum gradually thinned out and was replaced by Gorse, which is also in full bloom (bright yellow) this time of year. After Ardlui I began to see a lot of snow splotched "Monros."

I'm not going to go into detail over every stop on the way but it's truly a lovely trip. All of the small stations are so picturesque. The station at Rannoch Moor is the setting for the train station at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. Besides being spotlessly maintained, they all have hanging plants from the eves of the building, tubs of flowers on the station platform and flower beds wherever one can be fitted in. Sadly the trains themselves are not so well maintained, but then I imagine they get a lot of wear and tear. At that point the train started across Rannoch Moor. Rannoch Moor reminds me of something left over from the Ice Age. It's so desolate looking that it's beautiful in it's own way.
After we left Ft. William the train ran along the banks of Loch Eil. You could see ski lifts here and there on the sides of the mountains and there was an interesting looking Outward Bound Camp in Corpach. Lots of Kyacks (?) stacked around.

On the left is a picture of the Station at Glen Finnan. I just love these small Highland train stations. Glen Finnan was not exactly what I expected but I'm glad I went there anyway. It only took about two minutes to realize that this place was not your average tourist destination. Everywhere I went they acted so surprised to see me. The "Train Museum" was an effort by the local town council to preserve some of the railway history and was small, musty and charming. There was no admission charge, donation accepted. I'm afraid I was charmed into leaving a much larger donation than I normally would have done had this been some "professional" undertaking.

Excellent Food!

It was 12:30 p.m.. when I arrived so I though I would have lunch before I tackled the Monument and Visitors Center, which according to the Scot Rail Brochure was only a 10 minute walk from the station. The restaurant was a converted dining car, very clean, smelled heavenly, and was empty. The lady who was cook, waitress, cashier and probably dishwasher and janitor as well acted pleased, but very surprised to see me. I ordered the soup. One can NEVER go wrong ordering soup in the Scottish Highlands. The lady apologized and said that the soup wasn't done yet. (12:30 p.m.?) But informed me that the scones were fresh, so I ordered a scone. This was a melt-in-your-mouth scone, the size of a saucer, served with real butter, homemade apricot jam and a pot of delicious tea. Unfortunately they were "just out" of napkins. I licked my fingers, happily paid the lady the two pounds she asked and set off down the hill for the ten minute walk to the visitor’s center. They LIED folks. It was at least a mile down there, and a steep mile down at that.

The Monument and Visitors Center was very interesting and well worth the long walk down the hill. I did not climb the monument, as I gave up climbing monuments about 10 years ago. The entire time I couldn’t stop thinking about that mile, straight up, to the train station. I made it however, huffing and puffing all the way. By the time I got back to the restaurant the soup was done and well worth the wait. It turned out to be Creme of Carrot and Onion, served with home made bread. Yum.

The journey back was a replay of the trip up. I sat on the other side of the coach this time so that I could get a different perspective. The school kids got back on at Corpach but they were all tired and a little more subdued than they were in the morning. I'll bet those teachers were totally whacked when they got home. I certainly was.