A winter train trip on the Kyle Line
My wife and I celebrate each of our birthdays with a train journey from our local station of Dingwall. At Dingwall two lines diverge - the Far North Line to Wick and Thurso, and the Kyle Line to Kyle of Lochalsh Link
. January 10 is my wife’s birthday and this favours the winter trip to Kyle of Lochalsh where the whole route there and back can be accomplished in daylight if you stay in Kyle for just over two hours in the middle of the day. The important part of the planning is to get good weather, and forecasts are studied daily until an unambiguously good day can be expected. This year January 10 filled the bill - a proper birthday celebration. With forecast overnight temperatures below -10 degrees Centigrade both on the nights of 9/10 and 10/11 January and forecasted cloudless skies for the Western Highlands, we expected perfect conditions for the journey. We were not disappointed. We took food for the day as we knew that the Fisherman’s Kitchen (originally trading as Buth Beag) renowned for its Cullen Skink, would be closed. Our return rail tickets with a Senior Rail Card this year cost £21.60 each.
I presented one earlier birthday trip to Kyle as a Geotrip in 2019. It was entitled - Day Return to Kyle of Lochalsh from Dingwall. Much of what I wrote then is relevant today. I am repeating some of that text here, and adding comments on some photographic aspects..
A train ride from Dingwall, Sat, 2 Feb 2019
The railway line from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh is famed for its beauty. Together with the more publicised “Harry Potter” line that includes the Glenfinnon viaduct on its way from Fort William to Mallaig, and the wilderness route to Fort William over Rannoch Moor, the majority of the passengers who use the lines are tourists out for the ride and experience.
Each year my wife and I plan a winter journey on one of the North Highland lines. The choice is either the run to Kyle of Lochalsh or the longer journey to either Wick or Thurso. In the winter the timetables make a day return to Kyle of Lochalsh a great option as all the route at least from Dingwall, our natural starting point, is seen in daylight.
The crucial aspect is the weather. Living in the Highlands we can choose the day the weather promises to be at its best and even buy a cheap Advance ticket the day before. The morning train leaves Inverness at 0855 and arrives at Kyle at 1130. In winter we usually stay at Kyle for two and a quarter hours and catch the 1346 train back, which reaches Inverness at 1626.
Two and a quarter hours in Kyle is always enjoyable. First or last stop, Buth Bheag the small seafood shack opposite the town’s coach stop in the centre of town. Cullen Skink or sea food salads are quite superb and you can get a drink and sit outdoors in the sun. Then our usual walk - an exploration of the Plock of Kyle. This is very close with many footpaths, narrow and wide, to the coves of this promontory. Away from the shore there are orchids in summer and it is difficult to reconcile this conservation area with its former role as a golf course. The small bays have have been used as a major study area for seaweeds. The high point of the Plock is a purpose-made viewpoint which provides a wide panorama of Skye and shows the Skye Bridge to good effect.
In winter the trains are empty, so you can easily move around from side to side of the train for the best views. In summer I would be frustrated if I was “locked” in just one seat, as could potentially happen. For the most scenic part of the journey from Strathcarron Station to Kyle along Loch Carron you must be on the right-hand, loch-side of the train. An absolute must!!! So, if you are on a full train choose your seat for this section alone.
There are many images of the Plock of Kyle at NG7527 which will complement the ones here, and perhaps persuade others who find themselves in Kyle to take a walk on the Plock. For those who don’t like to part with their car for a day, and are on the west coast, you could enjoy the highlights of the train ride by taking a day return from Strathcarron to Kyle. A study of the map will show you that from Stromeferry to Kyle no car can replicate what you can see from the train. You are right at the water edge with a grandstand view.
Photography Addendum 2024
My approach to photography from a train is to only take images at 90 degrees to the train, by “anchoring” the camera to the glass, so the lens cannot catch reflections of the train’s interior lighting. If you have a clean window, whatever imperfections there are on the glass will be invisible. This year the train windows were not as clean as usual with both an overall mistiness and solid dirt. This required a careful choice of where to position the camera. Some post-processing of the images was needed on the computer to compensate for the surface smear film on the glass. All images were taken with a lens of focal length 24 mm on a full-frame camera, and crops taken where appropriate. As in all my rail journeys, I choose to operate the camera in a Manual Mode with a shutter speed of around 1/250s or 1/500s to minimise motion blur. I also choose an aperture of around f/4 to f/5.6 to reduce the chance of imperfections in the windows dominating the image. I suspect this moderately large aperture is the cause of some vignetting as the window glass is quite thick. This is easily corrected. Future experiments should confirm the pros and cons of using a relatively wide aperture. Then my camera can be set for Auto ISO to ensure the best combination of lighting, aperture and shutter speed. Mostly the resultant ISO was near 200.
In the most scenic parts of the Kyle journey the train is travelling close to 45 km/h or 30 mph. The journey of 61 miles from Dingwall to Kyle takes just over 2 hours including stops. Such a slow speed is helpful for photography. For position fixing, my mobile Apple iPhone using the app GPX Tracker records position every second and the camera clock is synchronised. Theoretically this could lead to a position accuracy of around 14 m when travelling at 45 km/h.
Conclusion
It is a surprise how similar the conditions were on the two GeoTrips - on February 2 2019 and January 10 2025. Both were fantastic days to take the train, and further days out on the Kyle Line are inevitable.
You can see this trip plotted on a map on the Geo-trips page Link .
- When
- Tue, 14 Jan 2025 at 18:31
- Grid Square
NG7627- Chosen Photo
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