Edinburgh - Glasgow - Fort William - Ballachulish

So, the Great Rail Journeys tour begins.... with a great rail tour.

Many times on this blog I've said "Today was all about the journey".  Well today it really was, because there was nothing else!!! It took all day to get from Edinburgh to Ballachulish, which is near  Glencoe.

Today's rail journey

We started off by leaving Edinburgh on the 10.37am train to Glasgow. This was just a normal inter-city train, so no big deal.
Before I left Edinburgh I took a few more pics - once again a beautiful sunny day!

Looking at Edinburgh over Waverley Station

Edinburgh

Edinburgh

I forgot to mention yesterday, that broadly speaking, there are 2 parts to Edinburgh - the old town and the new town. The pics I took 2 days ago of the Royal mile were part of the old town.
Yesterday when I returned from the Britannia, I wasn't sure where to get off the bus and I ended up miles away from my hotel and consequently walked my way back through the new town.

Here's a pic of the new town..

Edinburgh Princes St - New town

 Anyway, back to the journey...

Our hotel was very close to Waverley Station (which is the main Edinburgh station)

So we took a lift down to the basement and virtually walked into the station. I was a little worried about my luggage for this tour, because it was advertised as non-porterage, which means you have to carry your own! But, thank goodness, they changed their mind and hired a van to take our luggage straight through to this hotel, where we are staying for 3 nights. Phew....

Back entrance to Waverley Station

Inside Waverley Station

Royal Scotsman

This was our train to Glasgow...

Train to Glasgow

Bit of history about Waverley station

Info about Waverley Station

Info about Waverley Station

Our trip to Glasgow was about 40 mins and all went seamlessly.

Glasgow Station - Queen St

We had about a spare half hour before our connecting train to Fort William, so we hopped outside into George's Square for a quick look around. Lots of  statues and lots of pigeons!!!

Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow

I was thinking of maybe catching the train up to Glasgow when I've finished this tour and I have a few spare days, but I'm not sure it is worth journey. Apparently there's lots of "kultcha" there! Hmmmm ... I'll reserve that decision until later.

We were allocated seats on the Fort William train, which was just as well, because the first 2 carriages were leaving the train at Crianlarich and heading for Oban. Anyone recognizing any names here...??????

There were lots of familiar places on this route and obviously I couldn't get the train to stop so I could take pictures, so all you're getting is pics of stations!!!! (My train loving family will enjoy this post!!!)

Just 2 days ago I was here...

There were good things and bad things about going by train.... At least I could look at everything this time, but I couldn't take any pics of the scenery - which was just as beautiful as the other day!

You may remember I stopped for a coffee at Crianlarich when I was  driving. Today we stopped so the train could cut itself in two - as mentioned above... half went to Oban and half continued on to Fort William.

Here's the big split...

Front half of train going to Oban

We then passed through Tyndrum Upper - my notes say that  Tyndrum is the smallest place in Britain with 2 separate stations : Upper and Lower!

Just north of Tyndrum was the famous "horseshoe curve" ....  made because the railway builders didn't have enough money to build a viaduct.

We crossed the lonely Rannoch Moor, which is described as a peaty, lonely moor full of lochs and lochans, whose extent is difficult to measure. I remember watching a Michael Portillo show about this part of the railway, and they had to float the railway across the peat bog on layers of turf and brushwood without solid foundations.

The notes about Corrour Station amused me no end....

Corrour Station

It is described as probably Britain's most remote station - it is 10 miles from anywhere, accessed only by this remote track. 10 miles from anywhere.....????? I wonder what Australia's most remote railway station is....???? There you go rail nerds... let's see if you can find the answer to that!!!

So, eventually we arrived at Fort William, which is like the capital of the highlands. Population apparently is approx 10 000.

Our bus met us there and drove us about 30 mins south to a village called Ballachulish, where we are staying the Isles of Glencoe Hotel.

Our hotel

View from the front

My room looks out over Loch Leven and the view is stunning. Will get some pics tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, I have decided to opt out of tomorrow's excursion on the bus. They are going by bus to Oban, then on the ferry to the Isle of Mull to Craignure and then turn around and come back again.... Does any of that sound familiar again...???
It's going to be a long day from 9am to 7pm and I've decided just to stay here and have another rest day. Very happy with that decision. If I had not been just last week, I probably would've gone, but it's barely a week since I was there and I don't think much will have changed!

So, I'm just going to chill out and relax and maybe do a bit of washing and go for a walk and read a paper etc...etc...

So, you'll get the cut down version of Wattle's Wanderings tomorrow, but I'm sure we'll find something to entertain us all again!!!