The wild west: route notes for the Sunday Edinburgh-Oban direct train

This is an independent perspective on what is a fabulously beautiful part of Scotland to which we are unequivocally committed – but open-eyed.

Scotrail is running an innovative day return service to the wild west, direct from Edinburgh to Oban – as a pilot scheme, every Sunday from 25th July until the end of August 2010.

The route is a stunner, full of scenic delights which travellers would be able to see much more of if – as with Scotland’s roads – the scrub at the side of the track was progressively cut down. Add your voice to the shout for this madness to end. How do you defend selling anything on grounds that experience cannot absolutely verify?

However, there are intriguing glimpses and vistas- enough to conjure and almost grasp the mysteries and seductions around this unique route.

For people in and near Edinburgh, this service offers an adventure to the wild west coast from the more staid east. You don’t have to change trains and stations in Glasgow. You don’t have to drive. If you’re with friends or family, you can all see the same views at the same time. You can have a glass of wine with your lunch – or a dram at the Oban Distillery.

You leave Waverley station at 8.00am and you can join the train at three other Edinburgh stops (Haymarket, Linlithgow and Polmont) before it goes, like Peter Pan, straight on until morning – the dawn of your relationship with a part of Scotland you may never have seen.

So here, for all visitors coming to Argyll’s west coast on this Sunday escape treat, are notes on the train, some places the route touches and a little of the history you will sense as you pass. If you can only see fleetingly, these notes will help what you see to mean more to you.

You will also find information on places to eat, things to do and what’s on in and around Oban on the day at the Oban and Lorn Tourism Association website.

For train buffs

This direct route avoids central Glasgow and the need to change trains. How? Scotrail has given us the information on the routing through Glasgow and the stock used for the trip.

• Central Glasgow is avoided on this direct service by routing the train on the east to north curve at Cowlairs, at Springburn in the north east of Glasgow.
• The train is a Class 156 unit. It will be consistent over the trial period as it is Scotrail’s only daytime rolling stock cleared for the West Highland Line.

The section of the rail route this train takes, from Bowling on the Clyde to Tyndrum at the most northerly point of the journey – is part of the West Highland Line, voted the world’s best rail journey.

The line from Tyndrum to Oban which this train then takes is a branch of the West Highland Line, with the main route carrying on north from Tyndrum, across Rannoch Moor, coming in behind the Nevis range of mountains, then turning west down the Roy Valley and back south into Fort William.

This route, with its onward branch line from Fort William out to Mallaig on the west coast opposite the Isle of Skye – with the Jacobite steam train running some services in the summer season – deserves every inch of its international acclaim.

By now, everyone knows that the long curving Viaduct at Glenfinnan (the rallying point for the almost successful 1745 Jacobite rebellion) on the Mallaig line, was the scene for the flying car pursuit of the Hogwarts Express in the movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. What is less well known is that it also featured in two later Harry Potter movies, The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire. The Glenfinnan Viaduct also features on Scotland’s 2007 £10 banknote.

We recommend the full West Highland Line as another major experience for your ‘to do’ list.

Cowlairs and the swing away from Glasgow

The rip through Scotland’s Central Belt from Edinburgh towards Glasgow is an OK but not particularly memorable part of this journey. But, unusually,  you will find yourself passing through Cowlairs – where the the train is switched east and north to avoid central Glasgow.

Cowlairs is itself full of industrial historical interest. It was the first works in Britain to build locomotives, carriages and wagons in the same place.

In World War II Cowlairs’ role in the war effort was producing, among other things, Airspeed Horsa troop carrying gliders for the D Day airborne assault; and 200,000 bearing shells for Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. When you look at the interior shot of the aircraft (above – complete with folding bicycle), you can see why a railway works could adapt to such production.

The Clyde and Bowling

The fun on this journey starts when the Cowlairs east to north curve casts you up alongside the Clyde near Old Kirkpatrick.

Just west of Old Kirkpatrick, the train runs past Bowling, clearly once a busy shipping port with stretches of derelict timbers that once supported jetties poking skywards out of the shallows. Bowling is at the western end of the Forth and Clyde Canal (now restored), connecting via the Falkirk Wheel to the Union Canal and the gateway to the Lowland canals.

A £1.4 million regeneration programme at Bowling Basin (above) and sea lock has now been completed, with more moorings and better facilities for users.

What may not be known is that Bowling also marked the western extremity of the Antonine Wall – the northernmost Roman fortification.

This draws a line from the Firth of Forth in the east to the Firth of Clyde in the west, on the limit of their control of Britain. (Wikipedia mentions a play called ‘The Romans stopped at Bowling’.)

In the context of this article, the schematic above, showing its location and its ‘milepost’ forts, looks like another train route.

The second of two wall fortifications the Romans built in the north – Hadrian’s Wall to the south in Northumberland was the first – the Antonine wall ran for about 39 miles, was around three metres high and five metres wide. It had a deep ditch on the north side for further security.

Its construction, ordered by the then Roman Emperor, Antoninus Pius, began in AD 142 and took about twelve years to complete.

The scant remains of the wall (left) between Croy and Barr Hill are now a World Heritage Site.

The Gareloch and Faslane

After Bowling, the train sweeps further up the Clyde, past Cardross and Helensburgh, the shoreside town where Charles Rennie Macintosh built Hill House and with 16,000, about one sixth of Argyll’s population of 96,000.

The second largest local authority area in Scotland with the third most dispersed population, Argyll in far from crowded.

Now the waters of the Clyde, visible out of the left hand widows, become the Queen’s Harbour of the Gareloch, with the train rounding the back of Faslane with its security fence, now the UK submarine base and with a leaking nuclear waste facility the Ministry of Defence has no immediate plans to replace.

After this invisible evidence of military care for the environment – local communities needing jobs, remain largely blind and silent on the dangers – the train curves to the west across the narrow neck of the lovely Rosneath peninsula to the south. Then it straightens up to run northwards through part of Scotland’s first National Park.

Loch Long and Arrochar

This is the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park,  a lot of which is in Argyll. The train works its way into it, keeping step with the well-named Loch Long, all the way to Arrochar at its head.

Loch Long itself was used during World War II to train naval crews in tuning and firing their torpedoes and this link gives you the story of Roy Elwood’s time there. A nationally respected photographer, he served then on HMS Zambesi and his article includes a photograph he took during Zambesi’s torpedo training in Loch Long, with the ‘fish’ caught emerging from the hull of the ship.

Above the west shore of the head of Loch Long, opposite Arrochar, the spectacularly gothic, ‘Addams Family’ crown of the legendary Ben Arthur – or, popularly The Cobbler -  in the Arrochar Alps rears its head (top). Now you believe you’re in the wild west.

Loch Lomond and the Sloy hydro power station

Just south of Arrochar, the line cuts eastwards across the narrow isthmus between Loch Long and Loch Lomond, passing through Tarbet and swinging on north up the west side of the great loch’s final finger to Ardlui.

Now the water you glimpse from the right hand windows is the Loch Lomond of the song, with Ben Lomond towering above it on the far side.

Leaving Ben Lomond behind and south of Ardlui at the head of the loch, the train passes above Sloy, North of Scotland Hydro Electricity Board’s first hydro-electric power station and the biggest until Glendoe – above the southern end of Loch Ness at Fort August – opened (and quickly closed again because of a failed tunnel) in 2009. . The elegant sandstone station building at Sloy, with its Georgian-style windows, can be glimpsed – if you’re quick, below the train.

On the uphill side are the great water pipes (above) coming down the hill from the reservoir behind the dam at Loch Sloy, below Ben Vorlich, the northernmost Munro in the Arrochar Alps. This water drives the turbines inside the building and exits – with high drama when the turbines are running – into a still pond ducted below the A82 into the loch.

Tour buses often stop on the A82 opposite the power station to take photographs of it. There have been occasions in the not-so-distant past when so much water has jetted so fast out of the turbine exits that some tourists have been soaked to the skin in the splash.

Sloy is known as Site One, the first built and coming into operation in 1959. It is now about to build a pump to drive the used water back up the hill from the still pond, keeping its reservoir topped up.

Into the Highlands

Now you leave the big sea and freshwater lochs and run on north inland up the glen to Crianlarich, gateway to the Highlands and on northwest to Tyndrum, already in the higher mountains which culminate in Glencoe.

After Tyndrum the route veers westwards through Glen Lochy to Dalmally and on across the head of Loch Awe, with views from the right hand side into spectacular mountain scenery.

Loch Awe and Kilchurn Castle

As the line runs along the head of Loch Awe, visible from the left hand side, it passes the causeway to Kilchurn Castle (above).

This is a 15th century foundation fought over by clans Campbell and MacGregor and used as a Government garrison during both the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite risings. It was badly damaged by a lightning strike and abandoned in 1760.

One of Scotland’s most photographed castles, it is now managed by Historic Scotland and can be reached either via the causeway routed below the railway viaduct across the marshes at the head of the loch or, romantically, by boat from Lochawe village, below the Loch Awe Hote, landing at the jetty visible in the photograph.

Ben Cruachan – ‘the hollow mountain’

After Lochawe village the line runs along the northern shore of Loch Awe, moving back from the loch a little after passing under a bridge at the little residential inshore island of Inish Conan.

From here it takes a track above the A85, below to the left and under Ben Cruchan (above) to the right. Ben Cruachan is known now as the ‘hollow mountain’ because it is just that.

During Scotland’s great post-World War II drive to power itself  from its water resources – led by then Secretary of State for Scotland, Tom Johnston and starting with the Sloy station you’ve already passed – a reservoir was built below the top of Ben Cruachan, filled by pumping from Loch Awe below with 10% coming from rainwater. (The dam at its southern end is visible from the A816 as it drops down from Glen Aray to Loch Awe.)

The interior of the mountain was then literally hollowed out to host the cathedral-like turbine hall. The power station was listed by the conservation organisation DoCoMoMo as one of the sixty key monuments of post-war Scottish architecture.

Cruachan was the  world’s highest head reverse-turbine hydro-electric power station. (There is now one higher.) It generates on demand during the day, earning revenue. At night, when electricity is cheaper, it buys power itself, reverses the turbines and pumps water back up from the loch to the reservoir above. Its profit is the difference between the money it earns for power produced during the day and the price it pays for the power it uses during the night.

What you will see from the train is the semi-circular boom in the water in Loch Awe, just below the track, where the force of the water exiting the turbines is buffered. You will see, at the same time, the Visitor Centre for the power station, perched attractively above the water. This offers a good, informative and visually interesting exhibition, a great lochside cafe and – a minibus trip into the mountain to the turbine hall.

The Pass of Brander and battle that shaped Scottish history

After the Ben Cruachan Visist Centre, you will see glimpses through the scrub of a steeply sloping slope, spread with gravel falls, running into a pronounced narrowing of the loch. The rail track runs above the A85  through the Pass of Brander (above), passing through the site of the famous battle where, in the summer of 1308, during what are known as Wars of Scottish Independence, the Scottish King, Robert the Bruce, defeated the MacDougalls.

Two years earlier, the Bruce had been badly defeated by the MacDougall force, led by John Bacach (the lame), son of the clan chief, Alexander MacDougall of Dunstaffnage, in the Battle of Dalry, fought at Strathfillan near Tyndrum.

In what amounted to an ambush, the remains of the King’s force, already defeated at Methven by the English, were demolished by the MacDougalls, a victory which left the King a fugitive for at least a year.

By the summer of 1308 though, the Bruce was back in contention and, with Edward II focused on affairs back home in England, decided to seize his opportunity before the English returned to support their Scottish allies who had been left to fight alone at this stage.

Knowing that the Bruce would come for the MacDougalls, John Bacah positioned his men, hidden  half way up the hill on the northern side of the narrow Pass of Brander, above the path through the Pass below and ready to fall upon the King’s men..

But, once bitten by the ambush tactic, the Bruce was too wily to fall for it again. Instead he sent a party of Highlanders, under Sir James Douglas, high up the hill where, unseen, they waited to fall upon the MacDougalls in hiding below them. When the action started, the Bruce’s force fought up the hill, sandwiching the hapless Macdougalls between them and the descending warriors under the Black Douglas.

The MacDougall force broke and were pursued west by the Bruce, across the River Awe and right to their clan fastness at Dunstaffnage. John Bacach, who was ill and watching the battle from a galley on Loch Awe, escaped down the loch in it.

Back on land, Alexander MacDougall, the Lord of Argyll, surrendered, paid homage to the Bruce and not long afterwards joined his son in exile.

The battle of the Pass of Brander was one of the pivotal battles in Scottish history, the end of the internal opposition to the Scottish King, although it left bad blood whose price was paid later, in 1332.

The River Awe barrage and Bridge of Awe

At the western end of the Pass, if you’re watchful, you will see the barrage damming the River Awe. The bed of the river below the barrage looks untidily turbulent, full of tumbled boulders.

Not long after this, the rail track crosses the river at Bridge of Awe. From the left hand windows you may be able to catch sight of the runs of an old stone bridge beyond – the bridge that named the township of Bridge of Awe.

There is a single narrative linking the barrage to the oddly disturbed river bed, to the ruined bridge.

The River Awe Barrage is remotely controlled from Perthshire. In 1992, to reduce the level of water in Loch Awe, swollen with heavy flooding, the remote control procedures were used to open all three barrages gates simultaneously.

The force of water released suddenly into the river tore up the river bed and hurled boulders downstream fast, slamming them against the pillars of the still intact but – fortunately – by-passed old bridge. The stone structure could not withstand the impact and two of its three spans collapsed into the river.

The River Awe is traditionally an excellent salmon river with the pool below the barrage mentioned regularly in angling circles.

Taynuilt and Loch Etive

After the Pass of Brander and Bridge of Awe, the train curves through woodland, passing behind Taynuilt, a pretty village on Loch Etive (partial view above) whose preserved and beautiful Bonawe Iron Works, now looked after by Historic Scotland, produced, in 1781, no fewer than 42,000 cannon balls for the Ordnance at Woolwich. It supplied the cannon balls fired by the Royal Navy under Nelson at the victory of Trafagar in 1805.

The village of Taynuilt was allegedly the first to raise a monument to Nelson who died in this battle.

The affinity of the workers at Bonawe and the folk of Taynuilt with the Admiral fighting with their cannonballs for the survival of the nation was such that they raised the standing stone to his memory as soon as they heard of his death.

The monument’s inscription is dated 1805, the year of Trafalgar. Naval units in the area come here on Trafalgar Day to pay tribute to the victorious admiral.

From behind Taynuilt the rail line crosses down to and around the shores of Loch Etive, north east of Oban (now you’re in the vicinity), before swinging away to run south west through almost secret countryside  and – thanks to the scrub – largely unseen. The train emerges on the south side of Oban with glimpses of the bay, the Isle of Kerrera opposite and the mountains of Mull and of Morvern rearing up to the west and the north west.

The west coast and Oban

And you’re here – at what is unquestionably the prettiest town on the west coast mainland.

The town of Oban was an 18th century foundation growing to become the attractive town that today climbs the steep hills around its crescent shaped bay.

By World War II it was a busy port used by both Royal Navy and Merchant Navy ships. It hosted a flying boat base at Ganavan, north of the town and on Kerrera, the long low island to the west of Oban Bay, giving it shelter and adding visual definition.

In the cold war Oban became very important as the place where the first Transatlantic Telephone Cable (TAT-1) came ashore at Gallanach Bay, south of the town where Puffin Dive now operate in what are the best diving grounds in the UK. The cable carried the Hot Line running between the presidents of the USA and the USSR.

A secret so well kept that the books are out of print, is the series of west coast marine thrillers written by the late Glasgow journalist Bill Knox – the Webb Carrick series stars the Scottish Fishery Protection Service, often operating out of Oban and engaged in deeds of derring-do all over the west coast to the Western Isles. Each is set in a known area but in a fictionalised locale. Working out where they are is part of the fun.

These are cracking page-turners, capturing the essence of life on the west coast and the islands. Any film company with imagination would snap up the rights. Webb Carrick and the exploits in which he features are the potential west coast action-packed James Bond movies – handsome heroes, mysterious independent women, villains smooth and rough, scenery and natural hazards only Scotland’s west coast can deliver – and boys toys galore.

If you feel drawn to read them, to cement your relationship with Oban and the west coast, try online at Amazon or Abe Books.

Oban is literally crowned by the folly of McCaig’s Tower, the views from which are spectacular and well reward a walk up out of the town. You look across Kerrera to the mass of Mull, seeing the Sound of Mull stretch away west, between Mull and the mysterious landmass of Morvern in the Ardnamurchan peninsula. This ends at the lighthouse on Ardnamurchan Point,  the UK’s most westerly point.

A nasty piece of water to navigate, yachts that have roundes Ardnamurchan Point come in to moor in the shelter of Tobermory on Mull, with a bunch of heather tied to the pulpit to signal the achievement.

McCaig’s Tower was designed and commissioned by philanthropic banker, John Stuart McCaig, to make work for local stonemasons and to provide an enduring memorial for his family.

The tower was built between 1897 and McCaig’s death in 1902, at the age of 78. It cost him £5,000 – or around £750,000 at today’s prices.

Oban itself has good places to eat at all levels, with the renowned seafood restaurant, the red-roofed Ee-usk (above) on the North Pier at the top of the food chain, closely pursued by Coast, in the main street. It has a series of interesting shops, with the chocolate factory on the front beyond the North Pier a magnet for most of us chocoholics and the bookshop, Waterstone’s specialising in books on the area and on Argyll, often not seen elsewhere.

One book it carries was its best seller last year – the History of the Oban Lifeboat, one of Scotland’s busiest and visible at its berth beside the South Pier. The book was written by a former crew member, Willie Melville and the proceeds go to support the RNLI lifeboat.

You will have five hours in Oban, time to take life easy in this gentle town, explore its secret nooks and crannies. Details of Oban, what you can do, see and eat there, are on the Oban and Lorn Tourism Association website.

And if you get a chance to see The Illusionist, a magical 2010-release film with hand-painted period animations, you will see the fading entertainer at its heart play out the end of his career between Edinburgh, Oban and Iona, the holy isle with St Columba’s Abbey, south of Mull.

And home again

The train leaves Oban around 5.00pm and gets back into Waverly by 9.00pm.

Bon voyage.

Afterwards

You may discover you like the west and want to come back to the mysterious Argyll whose Dunadd Fort (above) in the archaeologically breathtaking Kilmartin Glen, is the birthplace of modern Scotland. With its lochs, its glens, its mountains, its welter of inhabited inshore and offshore islands and its embedded history, Argyll mirrors Scotland and is arguably the most complex and beautiful part of it.

Oban is a good place to start. Ferries to many of the offshore islands leave from there – to Mull (virtually a waterbus service in a large ro-ro), to Colonsay, Coll, Tiree (and Islay on Wednesdays), out to the Western Isles – and to the little inshore islands of Kerrera and Lismore.

There is also Oban Airport served by Hebridean Air Services, with unimaginably scenic flights to Colonsay, Coll and Tiree, with new trial flights on to Islay from Colonsay.

There are boat trips to seal colonies and from Tobermory on Mull there are whale and dolphin watching trips – the Argyll coast – longer than that of France – is on the orca migration run.

Loch Lomond Seaplanes does circular flights out of Loch Lomond itself and eye-catching flights from the Clyde up to Oban, with a leg on to Tobermory.

At heart, whatever you like to do outdoors, Argyll is the place for you. It has:

• the best sailing grounds in the world and international sailing and sailboarding events
• the best diving grounds in the UK – with wreck diving in the Sound of Mull a major focus
• one of the best set of sea kayaking opportunities anywhere
• great long distance walking trails – the West Highland Way, Bute’s West Island Way, the Kintyre Way and the Cowal Way
• a slew of highly individual half marathons slung across mainland and islands
• unique golf courses, also on mainland and islands – including the two famous courses at Machrihanish in Kintyre (the Old Tom Morris designed Machrihanish Golf Course and the new eco-course at Machrihanish Dunes, the first to be built from scratch in an area of Special Scientific Interest
• fabulous sporting and music festivals of all kinds
• the richest biodiversity in the UK – and you can see white tailed sea eagles at the Loch Frisa Eagle hide on Mull
• first class local produce and world famous single malt whiskies (think Islay for a start)
• there’s not an ugly corner in it – driving is bliss
• every one of its islands and areas is unique and would take a lifetime to plumb – the mainland bastions of Cowal, Mid Argyll, Kintyre, Lorn ad Lomond, with their mix of viking and Gaelic heritage; and the islands of Bute, Gigha, Islay, Jura, Colonsay, Lismore, Mull, Coll, Tiree and the Slate Islands.
• and it may be Scotland’s best kept secret but its accessible – on the west shore of Loch Lomond, half an hour from Glasgow, you’re already in Argyll,

In short, Argyll is very hard to beat.

Photographs accompanying this article are, from the top:

• Ben Arthur – or The Cobbler – rearing its ‘Addams Family’ head above the west shore at Arrochar at the head of Loch Long. It is by copyright holder Stemonitis and is reproduced here under the GNU Free Documentation Licence.
• Platform 14 at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, for the Oban express.
  
• The interior of the Airspeed Horsa glider, built at Cowlairs, by copyright holder Dave Deben and reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
• The Canal basin at Bowling, by copyright holder Dave Souza and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
• The schematic for Roman Forts on the Antonine Wall, by copyright holder Notuncurious and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
• The remnants of the Antonine Wall between Croy and Barr Hill, by copyright holder Tony Rotondas and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
• The pipes to the turbines at Sloy Power Station on Loch Lomond, by copyright holder Paul Hadfield and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
• Kilchurn castle on Loch Awe, by copyright holder, Peter Gordon and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
• Ben Cruachan, by copyright holder Grinner and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
• The southern end of the Pass of Brander, by copyright holder Chris Heaton and reproduced here under the Creative Commons Licence.
• House at Taynuilt on Loch Etive, by copyright holder, Sue Anderson of Island Focus. This image may not be used without permission.
• Oban with McCaig’s Tower. Copyright holder For Argyll.
• Oban’s North Pier with the red-roofed Ee-esk seafood restaurant. Copyright For Argyll.
• Dunadd Fort in Klimartin Glen, Argyll, by copyright holder, Sue Anderson of Island Focus. This image may not be used without permission.