page_title: Strathpeffer railway station
section_title: The twentieth century
hierarchical_section_title: Strathpeffer railway station / The twentieth century
caption_attribution_description: English: Strathpeffer, remains of station 1956View towards buffer-stops. Formerly the terminus of an ex-Highland branch from Dingwall: closed 23/2/46 (goods 26/3/51).
context_page_description: Strathpeffer railway station was a railway station serving the town of Strathpeffer in the county of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. The first station was located some distance from the town, on the Dingwall and Skye Railway line, and was opened in 1870.
  Seasonal visitors to Strathpeffer increased considerably in numbers, and a branch line to Strathpeffer itself was opened in 1885; the earlier station was renamed Achterneed. Tourism increased considerably, but the First World War interrupted the leisure development, and it never recovered after the war.
  In 1946 the second Strathpeffer station was closed to passengers. The earlier station, now called Achterneed, continued in use, being located on a through line, but it closed in 1964.
context_section_description: The Highland Railway belatedly set about building its own hotel in the town, but that did not open until 1911. Strathpeffer experienced a remarkable increase in seasonal visitors, and with the Highland Railway hotel there were more than 500 hotel bedrooms in the town, more than anywhere else on the Highland Railway system except Inverness and Pitlochry. The town was named The Harrogate of the North by the Weekly Scotsman newspaper.
  In 1908 - 1909 a through sleeping carriage service from London to Strathpeffer had been run, going forward from Inverness on the 9:50 am Wick train, which detached a portion for Strathpeffer at Dingwall.
  With the opening of the Highland Railway hotel, the Company started running a Tuesdays-only train in summer, the Strathpeffre Spa Express. It ran northbound only, from Aviemore and stopped only at Dingwall, using the Rose Street spur at Inverness to avoid the station there. This train ran from 1911 until it was suspended during World War I in 1915. It left Aviemore at 2:15 pm, connecting out of a Perth to Inverness via Forres express train, and it arrived in Strathpeffer at 4:15 pm.
   
  After the Armistice in 1918, the town never resumed its former importance as a tourist centre, and the passenger train service treated the line as a simple branch line.
  With the development of reliable road transport, the usage of the passenger service declined steeply in the 1930s, and on 26 March 1946 the passenger service was withdrawn. A limited goods service continued, but that too succumbed to road competition, and the branch closed completely on 26 March 1951. although closure was not made official until 12 August 1951.
caption: Remains of station 1956.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2401", "Image ImageLength": "1440", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "400", "Image YResolution": "400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 12.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2017:03:21 22:04:13", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "390", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9145", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2346", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1312"}