At the heart of the local community
PAUL STEPHEN visits the station adjudged Medium Station of the Year at RAIL’s National Rail Awards, and discovers a location where business is booming
For those unfamiliar with Scotland, there is an easy way to locate Pitlochry on the map.
That’s because it is so near to the country’s geographical centre, it is said that a map of Scotland can be balanced on the head of a pin positioned directly beneath the location of the small town of approximately 2,800 people.
Located some 28 miles north of Perth on the Highland Main Line, Pitlochry is also where you can find the winner of this year’s National Rail Award for Station of the Year (Medium).
Opened in 1863, the two-platform station welcomed more than 125,200 passengers in 2017-18, an increase of 3.2% on the previous year.
This rise in patronage partly reflects the growing trend for ‘staycations’ in the UK, in addition to Pitlochry’s status as the southern gateway to the world-famous Cairngorms National Park.
Largely developed in the 19th century, following Queen Victoria’s purchase of the royal estate at Balmoral, Pitlochry remains a popular draw - not just among hillwalkers and climbers, but also for its Festival Theatre which showcases some of Scotland’s talent in dramatic arts and comedy throughout the summer season.
Thousands of visitors also descend each year on the Pitlochry Dam and Salmon Ladder that were built nearby as part of the Tummel hydroelectric power scheme from the late 1940s.
The town is easily accessible by rail, with all Highland Main Line services operated by ScotRail stopping there (currently 11 in each direction per day), as well as one LNER service to London King’s Cross and the overnight ‘Highland’ Sleeper.
From the May 2020 timetable change, the Highland Main Line service is expected to have risen to an hourly frequency, with ScotRail trains running to Inverness in the north and to Perth (and then Edinburgh or Glasgow) to the south.
Pitlochry is also in the process of welcoming new stock, with the first of ScotRail’s
Inter7City HST sets entering traffic in October 2018. All 26 are scheduled to be in service by next summer, adding significant extra capacity by entirely replacing the three-car Class 170 Turbostars that currently operate on this route.
Meanwhile, Pitlochry is also expected to welcome its first Class 800/1 Azuma from December 9, once LNER has begun the withdrawal of its HST fleet from operating services between London King’s Cross and Inverness and Aberdeen.
To accommodate the longer trains, Pitlochry’s two platforms have recently been extended as part of a £ 57 million enhancements programme that was completed by Network Rail along the Highland Main
Line in March.
Pitlochry signal box (which previously controlled the passing loop through the station) was also decommissioned at this time and now awaits a future use, while NR also took the opportunity to restore several of the station’s original Victorian features - including benches and an ornate water fountain.
The remainder of the station had undergone a sympathetic restoration completed by NR in 2014 as part of the station’s 150th anniversary celebrations, while the waiting shelter on Platform 2 will shortly be reroofed.
But these are just the latest in a string of improvements that began in 1993, when the Pitlochry Station Liaison Group was formed to resist a British Rail proposal to cut opening hours at the station’s ticket office.
The group now forms part of the Highland and Perth Liaison Group, which was itself joined by the Highland Main Line Community Rail Partnership in 2015 in its bid to promote greater use of the line, and to encourage the local community to improve the station by making use of redundant buildings.
This has manifested itself at Pitlochry through the presence of a thriving book shop, which began in 2005 with second-hand books being sold on the platform from a picnic table, before it moved indoors two years later to occupy an area between the ticket office and waiting room in the main station building on Platform 1.
Relying on donations, the bookshop is run by a team of 35 volunteers - including manager Bobbie McGraw, who tells RAIL:
“We’ve gone from strength to strength. We started off selling books for 50p, but now we even stock collectors’ books - we sold one for £ 500 to a buyer from Australia, and another (a first edition book by English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley) for £ 2,000 earlier this year.”
The bookshop has now raised almost £ 300,000 for its six chosen charities, which include Cancer Research, Tayside Mountain Rescue and Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance.
And with up to six boxes of books being donated each day, disused toilets are currently being converted into a bookstore, which has been funded by a grant of £10,324 from the Railway Heritage Trust, as well as further funding from ScotRail, the Andie Millar Trust, the Basil Death Trust and other local sources.
With other community groups now visiting Pitlochry to learn how their own stations can be regenerated just as successfully, Scotland’s Railways Honorary Rail Ambassador John Yellowlees says: “If you could bottle what has happened here and sell it, there would be far more places like this. It was the threat of a reduction in the number of manned hours that resulted in all this community activity, and the station is now at the very heart of the local community with plenty of non-rail users passing through.”
NRA judges also wanted to recognise the efforts of other community volunteers, including Highland Main Line Community Rail Partnership Chairman and station adopter Sally Spaven, who hopes the National Rail Award will encourage more people to visit the town and station.
She believes that it will add to the publicity the station has already garnered from the decision by Channel 4 to film there earlier this year as part of its World’s Most Beautiful Railway series, and from the award in
September of £1,000 to Pitlochry in Bloom, from the Community Fund for the Solheim Cup (one of the largest events in women’s golf that took place at Gleneagles, in Perthshire, from September 9-15).
Spaven says: “We’ve been a bit canny about not blowing our own trumpet until lately, as the introduction of the ScotRail HSTs and the new Caledonian Sleeper Mk 5 stock were both late, and if people have booked to come here on new trains and they don’t turn up then they’ll be disappointed.
“But we’re nearly there with it all. The HSTs and Mk 5s have started coming in, and the new Azumas start in December. We’re really excited about the new trains.”
Jamie Macleod, one of two members of station staff who man the ticket office between 0800-1830 on Monday-Saturdays and 11001800 on Sundays, adds: “We’re really chuffed with the NRA. It’s fantastic to be a part of it, and a great experience to work with so many great individuals.
“I’m very happy here to serve all the regular customers, tourists and people who just pop in for a chat. I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.”