The West Highland section of the LNER
THE construction of the West Highland Railway involved one of the boldest pieces of railway engineering that has ever been carried out in Britain. From the moment it leaves the shores of the Firth of Clyde and strikes off up the hillside from Craigendoran, the country traversed is exceedingly difficult; for fully one-third of the distance to Fort William it follows no main highway, and apart from walking there is no other way of seeing these wild regions. Even where there is a road running near, the railway invariably takes the higher ground “with the advantage of the eagle over the sparrow”, as a Scottish writer expressed it; the result is a route that has been extolled from almost every angle by lovers of wild and majestic scenery.
But it is not the scenery alone that makes up the unique appeal of the West Highland. When studying the physical characteristics of any line of railway it is often interesting to speculate as to what changes in alignment and grading there might have been had the circumstances been different at the time of construction. The West of England line of the Great Western Railway would have been aligned very differently between Reading and Castle Cary had its present importance been foreseen, but while, in this case, it would have made things much easier from an operating point of view, it is doubtful whether the ordinary traveller would be aware of any difference.
In the very unlikely event of the West Highland having been planned as an express route, its whole character would have been different. We should never have enjoyed those delightfully bewildering twists alongside Loch Lomond and up Glen Falloch, where there are frequent glimpses of the engine from the third or fourth coach in the train; changes in gradients so abrupt that they can be plainly felt in the train and sometimes cause ordinary travellers to remark upon them, would never have existed. Only the scenery would remain, and even then a fleeting glimpse of Beinn Dorain from a streamlined express bucketing up Glen Orchy at 70mph would be a very poor substitute for the ever-fascinating perambulation of the Horseshoe Bend.
I have dwelt rather on this aspect of the route because from previous articles on the subject, both railway and otherwise, one might have gathered that its peculiar characteristics are due solely to the nature of the country. Mr. J J Bell, writing of the Horseshoe, describes the site as "... a glen which no engineering could get across”. This is not true. The glen beneath Beinn Dorain presents no more formidable an engineering task than the gap bridged by the Midland main line at Ribblehead. The West Highland was built to open up the country; there were scant prospects of a remunerative traffic for many years, and the line was therefore built as cheaply as possible. No attempt was made to even out the grades, and it was a remarkable feat to plan such a line with only one tunnel, and that a bore of but 20 yards long on Loch Lomond side.
The degree to/2 miles in a straight line; taken over the entire distance to Fort William the corresponding figures would show a still greater disparity, but give not altogether a true impression, for the line makes a wide detour round the ‘massif’ of Ben Nevis.
