FIVE MORE OF THE BEST
REDCAR BRITISH STEEL
Redcar British Steel opened with great ceremony in 1978 to serve British Steel’s vast Teesside Steelworks… but the site is now a shadow of its former self and the station sits within a vast desert of industrial wasteland. The two platforms don’t really serve anywhere and the station is now one of the least used in Britain. Its fortunes might change as the redundant land is regenerated.
FORSINARD
Dozens of stations in Scotland could qualify as remote, so what’s so special about Forsinard? Well, the handsome little building is now an RSPB visitor centre, as it sits on the edge of a 25,000‑acre nature reserve. It’s this reserve that qualifies Forsinard for inclusion here, for humans are only permitted on part of it – the rest is protected, particularly as it’s a home for the endangered hen harrier.
RICCARTON JUNCTION
Another grand-sounding location but, as with Dovey Junction, it’s a place that evolved just because two railway lines met. It’s just over the Scottish border, where the Reedsmouth branch joined the famous Waverley Route. unlike Dovey, Riccarton boasted a small railway village, and the junction featured a mass of sidings and a locomotive shed, surrounded by the Lothian landscape.
LYDD-ON-SEA HALT
Whether the vast expanse of shingle around Dungeness actually qualifies as a desert is still debated, but there are few places in Britain quite as bleak and open. Lydd-on-sea Halt sat in this vast sea of gravel and was a bigger station than its name suggests – it had a loop with an island platform and a footbridge. It opened in 1937 when the branch to New Romney was relaid on a new alignment.
SNOWDON
3,560ft above sea level: you can’t get much more remote than this. The Snowdon Mountain Railway isn’t easy to model, thanks to a lack of kits for its Swiss-designed locomotives and the rack in between the running rails. But you can’t really leave it out of a list of the most remote stations as it has enabled tourists to experience the spectacular scenery since 1896.