The Aberfeldy Branch Line was opened for traffic on the third day of July, 1865.

“A meeting was held in the Breadalbane Arms Hotel, Aberfeldy, on  Tuesday last, at which meeting a deputation of the Directors of the main line were present, consisting of Hon. T. C. Bruce (Chairman of the Coy.); Sir Alexander Gordon Cumming, Bart.; Henry Inglis,  Esq. W.S.; Joseph Mitchell, Esq, C.E,: and Andrew Dougall, Esq., Secretary. Sir Robert Menzies was in the Chair. It was stated that the total amount of stock taken up in the district amounted to £30,370, for the formation of the branch line, including £11,000 subscribed by Lord Breadalbane. Although £35,000 was the sum originally fixed by the Directors before they would undertake to make the branch, they agreed to proceed with its construction.”

It was almost entirely through the persistent and determined efforts of the late Sir Robert Menzies, Bart. that the Directors ultimately agreed to proceed with the branch line. At first the Directors declined to have anything to do with it, and Sir Robert, in a letter dated 2^nd Jan., 1899, states “When the Directors declined to proceed with the Aberfeldy Branch, I ceased to be one, and opposed the amalgamation of the Highland with the Perth and Dunkeld Railway, on the grounds that no line can be amalgamated with another till its whole length has been completed. In that I succeeded, and the Perth and Dunkeld Railway was adopted by the Highland with the condition that the Directors were to pay a fine of £25 a day to the Queen if the Aberfeldy Branch was not completed within the time named. That was done, and it has been a good paying bit of the Highland Railway, even after two bridges over the Tummel and Tay were imposed on it.”

Shortly after the meeting of the Directors mentioned above, the first sod of the branch line was cut by the Hon. Mrs Stewart Menzies of Chesthill, Glenlyon, just about 100 yards eastward from the end of the present station platform. The line took about three years to construct and we take another interesting paragraph from the ‘Dundee Advertiser’ of 3^rd July, 1865, which states “The Aberfeldy Branch was inspected on Saturday by the Government Inspector, Captain Birch, CE. He was accompanied by Eneas Macintosh of Raigmore; Cluny Macpherson; Major Cumming Bruce, M.P.;  Mr Andrew Dougall, Inverness; Mr Joseph Mitchell, C.E.; Mr Murdoch Paterson, C.E.; Mr Battle, Manager, Permanent Way; Mr D Jones, Loco. Superintendent; Messers Fyfe, Lamond and Bulmer; Mr E. O. Douglas, Killiechassie; Colonel Murray, Moness; Mr James Wylie, factor, Breadalbane Estate; Mr H.R.B. Peill, factor to Sir Robert Menzies; Mr George Rankin, banker, Aberfeldy; Colonel Dewar, Pitlochry; Colonel Irvine, Pitlochry; Mr Oswald, Dunniker; Mr P. S. Keir, Kindrogan, etc.. The inspection was highly satisfactory. The railway had been constructed by Messrs Grieve & MacDonald, contractor.  Counting bridges over burns, rivers and roads, there are forty five in all on this stretch of 8¾ miles. The curves are very easy, and the gradients next to level. Having now been sanctioned by the Government Inspector, the line will be opened for general traffic today ( 3^rd July, 1865). There will be two intermediate stations, Grantully and Lagg, the former now open and the latter shortly to be. After the inspection, the above mentioned company dined in the Breadalbane Arms Hotel, Aberfeldy. The Chairman gave the loyal and patriotic toasts, which were cordially responded to. He thereafter gave “Success to the Aberfeldy Branch”, which was most enthusiastically received.”

The idea of having a station at Lagg was ultimately dropped. The platform was constructed, but no buildings were ever erected. Probably what led originally to the intention of constructing a station at Lagg was the close proximity of Grantully distillery, which at the time was in active operation, and also the proximity of Cluny Ferry. That a small station at the Lagg would have proved of very great convenience to those resident in and around Pitcairn, Cluny Braes and Killiechassie is quite evident, the number resident in those parts at that time being considerable larger than it is today; but no doubt it was found the expense of constructing and maintaining a station within two miles of the terminal station, would not be warranted by the traffic receipts. For many years after the branch line was opened only three trains were run to and from Ballinluig Junction, one in the morning, one at midday, and one in the evening.

The inwards goods traffic to Aberfeldy Station is over 14,000 tons annually, and the outward over 13,000 tons. Timber, of course, makes up the bulk of the outward traffic.

A small wooden structure, which was attached to the original station buildings, and which escaped the fire, was used as a coal shed. In the wall of the second station building was a niche in which stood a large hand-bell which was rung vigorously by a porter to announce the approach of the train, and again to herald its impending departure.

It is often said that it would be a distinct advantage to Aberfeldy if the railway was extended to Kenmore and Killin, but it is very doubtful if Aberfeldy would gain by any such extension. It would certainly have lost its importance as a terminal station, and the loss in this respect might have been greater than the gain in other respects.

As said above it was on 3^rd July, 1865, that the Highland Railway came to Aberfeldy, surely a red letter day in the history of the town.

That an extension of the line to Aberfeldy would be a good thing for the town had already been decided some twenty years before by the local Debating Society at one of its meetings in “The Auld Smoky Ha” (in Black Steet, now Burnside), and there was a big turnout of the villagers to see the first train arrive. When it came puffing and clanking into the station and pulled up with aloud hiss of escaping steam, many in the crown were terrified. Not so old Carmichael, the lamp-lighter; “Waterloo” he was called, and a veteran who had faced the cannon of Napoleon in 1815 was not to be intimidated. “It’s only the iron horse breathing!” was his comment.

One of the passengers on the train was the new station master, Mr T. A. Fyfe, with all his goods and chattels in the luggage van, and it was said that the manner in which the engine-driver, accustomed to long straights of line further south, brought the train hurtling round the twists and windings on the way from Ballinluig, gave him the fright of his life!

In the early days, 3^rd class travel was a somewhat Spartan procedure. The coaches were very much shorter than those in the 1900s and, as everyone knows, the shorter the wheelbase the rougher the riding. At the same time, though there were no corridors; it was an easy matter to move from compartment to compartment, but not from coach to coach, by the simple expedient of climbing over the intervening seat backs. There was plenty of room for this pastime for, as children, it was considered a pastime on the rare occasions they had the opportunity to indulge. Add to this that the seats and the backs were of bare wood, polished certainly, but bare of padding or adornment, and the appropriateness of the word ‘Spartan’ is obvious.

Each compartment had a circular hole in the roof fitted with a removable lid which was fastened to the said roof. After dark the lid was pulled aside and a paraffin lamp fitted into the hole by a man climbing along the top of the train from carriage to carriage catching the lamps for the successive compartments as they were thrown up, already lit, by a colleague with a barrow-load keeping pace with him along the platform. Heating of the carriages was often more alleged than real and was by means of metal foot-warmers which, after being supposedly warmed up, were slung in, one per compartment, by the porter in charge, when he remembered!

In 1903 an aerial ropeway was set up to carry road metal from the Gatehouse Quarry to the railway station. This was for use on roads in the Highland District Council.

The ropeway was constructed by J. Henderson & Co., Aberdeen, and cost £4,000; the 7/8” rope alone accounting for £350. There were 38 steel trestles, varying in height from 35 to 40 feet, set about 100 yards apart; the road metal came down ready for use in buckets or skips, each of which was fixed to the moving cable by means of a finger-and-thumb clip or clutch gripped by its own weight and did the round trip, down with 3 cwt. of metal and up empty, in one hour and five minutes. The whole ropeway had a carrying capacity of 10 tons per hour. The ropeway was one of the longest in the country and operated until 1938 when it was found that the quarry was petering out and that the stone could be obtained more conveniently elsewhere.

In 1943 the railway was used as part of the film ‘Freedom of Aberfeldy‘ where a British Legion scheme is adopted by the women of Aberfeldy to provide home leave for the Dominion troops in Britain. Guests arrive and spend a week in the town, touring around, dancing, golfing, fishing etc..

In 1944, many wounded Polish service men arrived in Aberfeldy for treatment at the Polish Military Hospital in Taymouth Castle, after being wounded at Monte Casino in Italy.

On Friday, 20^th November, 1959, the 6.41 a.m. up-passenger train from Aberfeldy to Ballinluig was derailed approximately three quarters of a mile west of Balnaguard where 25 feet of embankment, 16 feet deep, had been washed away.

A period of intense rainfall had preceded the incident, with 3.02 inches of rain, 75% of the monthly average, falling in the 24 hours up to 9 am on the day of the incident. Those factors alone contributing to the washout. A report of the incident was carried out by Colonel J.R.H. Robertson who was satisfied that the line was properly inspected, and no one was in any way to be blamed for the derailment. The track reopened ten days after the derailment on 30^th November.

In Dr. N. D. Mackay’s book ‘Aberfeldy Past and Present’, he writes, “for many years I am afraid the authorities were inclined to treat our branch line as a ‘poor relation’ on whom to foist the cast-offs of the main line. This was bad enough but, now that for a few years we have been favoured with carriages as good as the average elsewhere, we live under the threat of discontinuance of our passenger service. Competition from roads, says the powers that be, has made our little line an uneconomic proposition, and so it is that, in the year of grace 1952, 87 years after the first train steamed proudly in Aberfeldy, while hoping for the best, we fear the worst”.

The line survived until the Beeching Report, ‘The Re-shaping of British Railways’, was released where lines whose usage in terms of passenger numbers or freight tonnage fell below required norms, were quite simply axed. The inevitable then happened in September 1964 with the publishing in appropriate newspapers of the official public notice of the terms of the 1962 Transport Act intimating the withdrawal of Railway Passenger Services between Ballinluig and Aberfeldy at a date which will be announced by British Railways Scottish Region.

There was a delay of several months, possibly in part due to the need to get permission to run the extra bus service, before the General Manager of the Scottish Region issued on 18^th March, 1965, the said letter intimating that closure would take place on Monday 3^rd May, 1965. On that day, two months short of its centenary, the Aberfeldy branch line came to an end. At the same time Ballinluig, Dalguise and Murthly on the main line closed and the local service from Perth to Blair Atholl was withdrawn. The goods service had already been withdrawn, on 25^th January, and the impact of that was reported by the Perthshire Advertiser: ‘”Aberfeldy has already felt the effects of the local closure of railway goods traffic. Coal merchants in the town (writes the Aberfeldy correspondent) have to collect from wagons at Ballinluig junction, result – an increase in the price of coal”.

After the closure, the removal of the track and buildings was one of the quickest carried out in Scotland. This picture shows Grantully Station one year after closure.

Aberfeldy Station House now

Information taken from James MacGregor’s ‘Weekly Newsletters’, Dr. N. D. Mackay’s book ‘Aberfeldy Past and Present’ and ‘Aberfeldy Railway’ by C. J. Stewart.

For information on the individual Heritage Trail locations, click on these links:

00: A brief history of the Churches in the Aberfeldy area; 01: The Square; 02: Aberfeldy Town Hall;

03: Former St. Andrew’s Church; 04: Birks of Aberfeldy; 05: Moness House; 06: Aberfeldy Hospitals;

07: Former Wee Free Chapel; 08: Independent Chapel; 09: The Watermill; 10: Parish Church;

11: Breadalbane Academy; 12: St. Margaret’s Church; 13: Black Watch memorial; 14: Aberfeldy Golf Club;

15: Wade’s Bridge; 16: Weem Parish Church; 17: Menzies Mausoleum; 18a Castle Menzies;

18b Castle Menzies Walled Garden; 19: Our Lady of Mercy’s RC Church; 20: Aberfeldy Branch Line.