‘JACOBITE’ SERVICES EXPA

hat can be better than steam on the ‘Road to the Isles’? Well, how about even more steam? As the relentless popularity of the ‘Jacobite’ continues to increase surely still partly driven by ‘Harry Potter’ mania - West Coast Railways is extending the season of this year’s ‘afternoon’ train. It means the second diagram of

WFort William-Mallaig steam will now continue until Friday September 9, rather than finishing in late August. It is just the latest increase in the offering for a train that has been in increasing demand over the years. The second train was itself a relatively recent innovation, though it’s amazing how time does pass: it was introduced in 2011 (SR389), the idea then being that it would run in June and July. The ‘Jacobite’ season itself ends on October 28, with a single train daily between September 10 and September 23, after which it runs Mondays to Fridays only. All that means the train now really does fill out the tourist season in the West Highlands - the six months of November through to April being a much quieter time before the trips traditionally begin in May… nice as it would be to see a ‘K1’ on the Mallaig extension in the snow. However good the bookings are though, sometimes nature has the final say on whether trains will run or not - and that was the case on August 11. This was the day when the afternoon train was stranded at Mallaig by a landslide between Glenfinnan and Lochailort. With the rain reportedly torrential, a river of mud, interspersed with lumpy bits, spread itself across the formation, making passage impossible. Motor coaches were hired to take the passengers home via a hastily reopened road that had also been covered by mud. However, the muddy goo that had slathered itself across the track meant there was no such chance for Ian Riley’s ‘Black Five’ No. 44871 and its coaches. The solution was simply to ‘put the engine to bed’ 40-odd miles from where it should have been.