Crossing loch etive at connel ferry

50 min read

In service for 120 years,Eric Stuart and Kevin Tiller look at the Connel bridge of the Ballachulish branch and consider its rail and road operations through to current times.

When caught at a level crossing there is a compulsion to simply watch the train pass, and while this view is taken by railway photographer Stephen Crook, it was also that witnessed by thousands of motorists over the years as they waited at the closed gates at the south end of Connel Ferry bridge, temporarily halted in their journey across Loch Etive just west of the Falls of Lora. The Ballachulish line shared its Connel bridge with road traffic from 22 June 1914, but there was not enough room for a train and cars to pass over at the same time, hence the wait. This view dates from about 1960 and the engine, No 55260, harks back to designs that pre-date the opening of this railway on 21 August 1903 and the early provision of the type at Oban and its Ballachulish outpost, ultimately endured through to August 1962. The line only operated for 62 years 7 months and little of that time was not graced by a Caledonian 0-4-4T ‘Passenger Tank’. In the case of No 55260 it is the first of the last of the breed, one of 10 LMS era engines of the William Pickersgill variant, the ‘431’ class, and built by Nasmyth, Wilson & Co Ltd in 1925. S C Crook/ARPT

The September 2023 issue of Steam Days included the article ‘Interesting Carson-Rail services of the past’, which in Scotland included the Strathcarron to Kyle of Lochalsh operation that bypassed the Strome ferry; it was operating by 1910 and continued through to 1957. Further south, about 62 miles as the crow flies (113 by road, and a staggering 293½ miles by rail in steam days, and even longer now) there is another cars-on-rail local service to consider, albeit very short-lived, and really in this case the larger story of a railway bridge across Loch Etive gives us a wider perspective worthy of study. The location is Connel Ferry in Argyll, and its bridge was provided for the Ballachulish branch line, a much-loved route that has enjoyed a fair amount of coverage from railway writers. With this in mind, it is not the intention to detail the story of that line here, but instead include an overview of the near 28 mile line in relation to its crossing of Loch Etive as part of a chronological account of the public options in regard to the crossing.

The first public railway to reach the village of Connel was the Callander & Oban Railway main line upon its extension from Dalmall

This article is from...

Steam Days Magazine

14 November 2023

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