Strangers on the highland railway

With Inverness its beating heart, the Highland Railway network, as shown on the back page of one of the company’s public timetables from the early 20th century, late additions being the direct line from Aviemore, north over Slochd summit to Inverness, and the Skye line reaching Kyle of Lochalsh on the west coast, in 1898 and 1899 respectively, while the Wick & Lybster route opened in 1903 and was Highland-worked; around 500 route miles would pass to the LMS. The map is, by necessity, cursory in its presentation, with Perth shown as the southernmost point, thanks to running rights, but pure Highland Railway metals began at Stanley Junction, seven miles to the north, the Scottish Midland Junction Railway (later Scottish North Eastern Railway and Caledonian Railway) route north-east from there towards Aberdeen going unseen; the inclusion of neighbouring lines is somewhat inconsistent. The other extremities are Keith (reached by the Inverness & Aberdeen Junction Railway in 1858) in Morayshire to the east, and Wick and Thurso (1874) in the north.

Author’s Collection

The term ‘strangers’ in this context will be for those locomotives that appeared on the lines of the Highland Railway (HR) that were not built, designed or ordered by the Highland Railway throughout the days of steam, and such ‘strangers’ did appear quite early in the days of the Highland Railway and its constituent companies; the Highland Railway came into existence on 1 February 1865 upon amalgamation of the Inverness & Aberdeen Junction (I&AJR) and Inverness & Perth Junction (I&PJR) railways, both of which had previously absorbed companies as part of their own growth.

The independent Perth & Dunkeld Railway (P&DR) opened to both passenger and goods traffic between Dunkeld and a junction with the Scottish Midland Junction Railway (SMJR) at Stanley on Monday, 7 April 1856, and it was to that company that the directors of the P&DR looked to work its railway, on a 10-year agreement, thus introducing ‘strange’ locomotives to the line that was to become part of the Highland Railway main line. Incidentally, the SMJR was to amalgamate with the Aberdeen Railway on 29 July 1856 to form the Scottish North Eastern Railway (SNER), and it in time (effective 1 August 1866) would become part of the Caledonian Railway (CR) empire.

Returning to the Dunkeld story, in the meantime matte