Highland Mainline Community Rail Partnership
Summer Newsletter
We trust all our Followers are keeping well and we apologise for the lack of news recently, but many of us have been dealing with family responsibilities and life in this post Covid world. There have been so many meetings and events to attend, which we have quite gotten out of the way of since 2020. And Volunteer fatigue is starting to impact on many of our local community groups, so it is important not to put any more pressure on folk willing to give up their time to help us, in so many ways. It is expecting a great deal of volunteers to take on the burden of Project Management without some paid support.
Anyway, a bumper newsletter this time, lots of good news, some controversial items, and a report on how our pax numbers are doing. And slightly political, we are on our third Transport Minister of this year, but we have met two of them so far!
We finished last year with our AGM at Am Fasgadh, (The Shelter) the archives of the wonderful Highland Folk Museum at Newtonmore, it was sadly delayed by a few weeks into October, due to the death of her late Majesty Queen Elisabeth II. After the AGM business was concluded and lunch over we were treated to a very interesting tour around the archives by a member of the Archive team. We saw some of the impressive artifacts stored and were fortunate to view the preparation of some of the tartan items being loaned for the fabulous Tartan Exhibition at the V&A Museum in Dundee, which is on until the end of the year. This is a short walk from Dundee Railway Station across the road, and just along from the “Discovery“, Captain Scott’s vessel which is a wonderful visit too! A wonderful day out, which we can recommend.
Left to Right: John Wilson-ScotRail, Kate Howie - HML CRP Treasurer, Caroline Thompson-Noble - Sustainable Travel Engagement Co-ordinator (Scotland), Sally Spaven - HML CRP Chair - Simon Hinsley - HML CRP, Ailsa Schofield - HML CRP Secretary, Lachlan Mcewan - HML CRP and Roy Brown - HML CRP Vice-Chair.
Sadly at the AGM, our long time Secretary Ailsa stepped down. Ailsa has been with us since the early years of 2013/14 and became the Secretary for the newly formed CRP in 2015, we send her our very best wishes for the future. She is remaining as Station Adopter for Kingussie. We also welcomed Simon Hinsley, newly relocated to the area, as the Station Adopter and representative for Aviemore and he brings a wealth of experience to the team.
We have had three face to face meetings since then and worked on our Action Plan, and are concentrating on issues our communities are raising with us, namely the sorry condition of some of our Station buildings. We managed to meet some of the interested locals at both Blair Atholl and Dunkeld & Birnam Railway Stations earlier in the year for a discussion on the best way forward and have subsequently been introducing them to NRHT, NR and ScotRail.
Rail Conference Glasgow – “Let’s Try 1 in 5”
Some of the Community Rail Partnerships attended the Spring conference in Glasgow in conjunction with “Paths for All” to launch a campaign to ask that people take one journey in five by rail and so cut car emissions by 20%. It was a most interesting day and gave us the opportunity to network and raise the profile of Community Rail in Scotland. And to see some colleagues we have not seen much of over the past three years.
Left to Right: Hege Haenes - WHL CRP, Bill Young - Strathallan CRP, Caroline Thompson Noble - CRN, Graham Atkins - Borders CRP, Jools Townsend - CRN CEO, Sally Spaven - HML CRP.
Modern Railways event - Glasgow
An invitation to this event from James Abbott, Editor, also resulted in a very interesting day, with speakers from the industry and the opportunity to meet up and network. We caught up with our good friends Dr Ann Glen, Douglas Norris and others.
Community Rail Network Conference Nottingham
Having not attended this conference last year and wanting to view Sleaford Railway Station restoration and underpass mural, the Chair made the journey to Nottingham. A very informative event, meeting some of the GBR Transition Team and some of the Line Officers and CRP’s, only met on Teams over the last three years, who have lines through National Parks. It was good to meet up with Paul Salveson, Mike Wilmott and bid farewell to Brian Barnsley, who has retired from CRN.
ScotRail Community Rail Meeting April
ScotRail held a Community Rail meeting for the Scottish CRP’s in April at Stow Station on the Borders Line. An interesting day focussing on the changing patterns for rail travel in Scotland. We enjoyed a presentation by Alastair Smart on Tourism and Leisure travel and the impact this is having on planning. We all got the opportunity to put some stitches in the Borders CRP tapestry, one of their projects as a contribution to “The Great Tapestry of Scotland” exhibition in Galashiels. The tapestry celebrates the re-opening of the Borders Line and will be stunning once complete.
Parliamentary Reception for Community Rail Scotland
We were delighted to be asked to attend Holyrood in late May to a reception hosted by Emma Harper MSP and meet the then Transport Minister Kevin Stewart MSP. Scotland’s newest CRP on the “Far North Line” was formally designated and we look forward to a group visit sometime “Up North”! A very good evening to speak with MSP’s about the value of Community Rail Partnerships and network with other invited guests.
Left to Right: Mike Wilmot - FNL CRP, Kevin Stewart MSP, David Watson - FNL CRP.
LNER Stakeholder Event in York
As usual a very enjoyable day in York in July for our annual Stakeholder event and update from LNER. Some interesting discussion around Marketing collaboration and ideas for future projects.
HML CRP Projects
Cairngorms National Park Signage
We were delighted to collaborate with CNPA to replace all the faded and damaged NP signs at the 6 Railway Stations within the park boundary over last winter. We first discussed this with them in 2019 and 4 years later, after a rebranding exercise, we were able to get the 32, yes 32, signs up before the summer visitor season. We thank Ollie and Murray from CNPA for involving us with this. We learned a lot!
Travelling Classroom
This project had to be parked on the back burner for a while, but we did manage to eventually get the Resource boxes into Kingussie late last year and are now working on the final three Primary Schools, which we hope to complete once the summer holidays are over. Many thanks to Allan Brooking of Network Rail and John Wilson of ScotRail for supplying books on rail safety for the pupils. We have just received an update on how the Highland Perthshire schools librarian has been using the books to teach rail safety amongst other things! Find out more here.
Updates from along the track!
Aviemore Station
We welcome Simon Hinsley as the new Station Adopter and CRP volunteer for Aviemore and he has been very busy.
The first tranche of planting is now established on Platform 1 near the memorial bench location, with further barrel planters being sourced for Platform 2. This further planting, including the relocation of the planter and “barrel train” now residing on the Strathspey Railway platform, will take place in August in time for the “Flying Scotsman” visit to Aviemore in September.
The Badenoch and Strathspey Society of Artists are currently running a competition to design vintage style railway posters showing sites in and around Aviemore. The plan is for these to be exhibited in September, select some winners, and get them made up into posters and installed before the end of the year. Further plans are under discussion due to the Stations listed status. Needless to say, we are all very excited about the visit of the “Flying Scotsman” in September and looking forward to it! However, we do have many other wonderful trains visiting our line, here is the Midland Pullman passing the daily Tesco freight train and the “Royal Scotsman” is well into its summer season up here.
Kingussie Station
Plans were lodged for lift towers and a new footbridge at Kingussie Station by Network Rail and went on-line from Highland Council, they were removed shortly afterwards and have now been re-sited further along the platform.
We were very saddened to hear of the death of Angus Blackstock, retired Station Master, who lived in the Station Masters House, we interviewed and met Angus a few times and he was always a delight to talk to about his long and varied career on the railway. HML CRP send our deepest condolences to all of Angus’s family.
Photo courtesy of Ed Smith Photography, Kingussie.
Pitlochry Station
Plans have also been announced by NR and ScotRail for lift towers and a new footbridge at Pitlochry, however, they are not on-line for viewing yet as Perth and Kinross Council have sent them back for some amendments. It remains to be seen what the local community will think of this design for their Grade A listed Station.
Pitlochry Station Bookshop
The Pitlochry Station Bookshop continues to forge ahead and we are delighted to report they have managed to reach the dazzling heights of £400,000 raised for their charities this year. All of this despite the difficulties of the last few years, but made possible by having the ability to store, research and manage books in their new stockroom, funded by National Railway Heritage Trust, ScotRail and local donations. This room has been invaluable since its official opening in early 2020, before we went into the first Lockdown.
As time moves on ever quickly, it is important to set on record how we got here and why. So, over the past winter months, Viv Cree, a bookshop volunteer and committee member, interviewed 12 people who were able to tell their own stories of the history of the bookshop, going back not just to the first days of selling books on the platform in 2005, but back to the very beginnings of the station users’ group and Pitlochry in Bloom in the early 1990’s. With technical assistance from Heartland FM, Viv was able to turn these interviews into a series of podcast, which can be accessed for free via Heartland FM, or on the bookshop’s website.
Have a listen and you will be amazed at the things you didn’t know, and the incredible effort and hard work that has gone into making the bookshop the success that it is today. In Spring this year, the bookshop passed the £400,000 mark of monies raised for its six charities. Now that is an achievement to be very proud of.
News of new Station groups
We are delighted to report that we seem to have the beginnings of two new Station groups at Blair Atholl and Dunkeld & Birnam due to the local communities’ concerns about the continuing dereliction of the Railway Station buildings. It is early days but at long last a team have visited Dunkeld & Birnam to carry out a survey on this much neglected building and we look forward to furthering engagement between the Station Action Group and Network Rail.
Friends of Blair Atholl Station
Greetings from the newest addition to the HML CRP family! A group of residents in Blair Atholl formed a “friends” group earlier this year and undertook adopt-a-station training led by Tracy Stevenson from ScotRail. We have now taken on the planters on the two platforms and have also turned our attention to the small waiting room on the “down” platform. So far, this is the only space that we have been allowed to access, but we are in discussion with ScotRail and Network Rail and have hopes that we might, at some point, be able to take over the Grade “B” listed building on the “up” platform. It has great potential as a community space, and even has a former station master’s flat upstairs, which we would like to convert for affordable housing. But this is a long-term project with many hurdles too overcome along the way, as all of you who have been on this journey know. Wish us luck, and if you would like to get involved or find out more, we have a Facebook page @FoBAstation and you can email us on friendsofbastation@gmail.com
Station Action Group- STAG – Dunkeld & Birnam
Good News
Passenger Update on HML
We have also just been informed that passenger numbers on the Highland Main Line are doing incredibly well with numbers increasing at different Stations from 6% up to an enormous 58% between April 1st and July 22nd this year. We are watching the trends with interest to see how we can continue to help grow these numbers. We have also made a case for re-instating poster timetables to assist international travellers use the local service. And there are plenty of them this year, which is wonderful. People do love to travel by train and we need to do all we can to encourage that and make it easier. As folk who hang around stations a lot, we know how a welcoming, safe place with assistance gives our visitors the confidence to travel by rail. And it benefits all of us, environmentally, economically and socially. Long may this continue.
Strathspey Railway news
We were all delighted to hear that “The Flying Scotsman” will be making a visit up the HML and visiting the Strathspey Railway in September. We will be making a pilgrimage to Aviemore for our AGM this year and celebrating 100 years of this iconic train. More information here.
Finally
With the resignation of our Secretary Ailsa Schofield at Kingussie, we currently have no representatives at Newtonmore or Kingussie and sadly no Station Adopter at Newtonmore. If anyone is interested, please do get in touch with us.
We will be holding our AGM in Aviemore in September and having a “Feel Good Field Trip” that day to cheer everyone up. We wish everyone a very enjoyable, and hopefully, Indian Summer as this must have been the wettest school holidays for many years!
