On 1st November 125 years ago in 1898, the first scheduled train to use the completed direct line from Aviemore to Inverness steamed into Inverness Station. The line had been a long time in the making as Parliament had first approved it in 1884. Due to shortage of money and design problems, it wasn’t until threats from other companies meant that building the line could no longer be delayed. Murdoch Paterson, Chief Engineer of the Highland Railway, died the previous August so would never see the line in public use.
By the 1880s the good people of Inverness could travel north, south, east and west by rail to Wick, Aberdeen, Kyle of Lochalsh, Perth and so to anywhere they fancied in the British Isles and further afield. However, for someone who wished to travel from Aviemore to Inverness, the journey was unnecessarily long as instead of taking a direct route, the line went to Grantown-on-Spey and then north across Dava Moor, with all its winter problems, to Forres and along the coast on the Inverness to Aberdeen line. At the time the first line was built, the expense could be defrayed by passenger ticket and freight income from the extra mileage. A direct line as now proposed
