Inverness to Thurso, Scottish Highlands
This journey offers views of Britain’s least populous region as you travel to the northernmost point of mainland Scotland, discovering all its visual treasures. Your entire journey lasts just under four hours, and there’s never a dull moment.
The line is single-track in many places, adding to the remoteness and isolation of the journey, and traces the eastern coastline so that it feels as though the train is running along the beach. The train crosses the ‘flow country’ of Caithness, and the virtually uninhabited landscape has a rare, bleak beauty.
At the tiny station of Georgemas Junction the line splits into two branches – one to Wick and the other to Thurso. This last stretch to Thurso is particularly special, as passengers prepare to alight at the northernmost railway station in Britain and take in all that this little Highland town, overlooking the Orkneys, has to offer.