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About Blair Atholl Station
Blair Atholl station is a working railway station on the Highland Main Line, approximately half-way between Perth and Inverness. Located at the entrance to the Cairngorms National Park, it is within walking distance of Blair Castle and a short bus or car journey from the House of Bruar. There has been a station here since 1863, when the first steam train made the perilous journey north over the highest summit in the UK – the Drumochter Pass. You can read more about the history here.
Modern day
Today, the station is served by three rail companies (ScotRail and the Caledonian Sleeper stop here daily and LNER once a week). Also freight trains pass through the station every day. Now residents and visitors have a plan to rescue the empty stationhouse building for community use.
The history of the station
Opened in 1863 by the Inverness and Perth Junction Railway, one of its earliest visitors to Blair Atholl station was Queen Victoria, on her way to Blair Castle to visit her friend, the 6th Duke of Atholl, who was gravely ill.
The current stationhouse building dates from 1869. It is on the ‘up’ platform and is a two-storey, stone building, incorporating the former station master’s house upstairs. When it was built, the stationhouse had two single-storey wings (also called ‘pavilions’), one of which was the Duke of Atholl’s private waiting room. This was demolished in the late 1960s, as was the original decorative awning.
The ‘down’ platform today contains a small wooden shed dating from the 1930s, which was built after the original waiting room burned down. It is still a waiting room today, and is open 24 hours.
There have been no paid staff at the station since the 1980s, but the one remaining signal box at the end of the platform is still staffed and operates the level crossing gates.
About Friends of Blair Atholl Station
Friends of Blair Atholl station is a sub-group of the Blair Atholl & Struan Initiative, and is a member of the Highland Main Line Community Rail Partnership. It was formed at the beginning of 2023, when a group of local people and one visitor came together to ‘adopt’ the station under ScotRail’s community involvement scheme. Since then, we have improved the physical appearance of the station (plants and planters, noticeboards etc.) and have built a community around the station through local networking and through use of social media.
We now have a three-stage plan to recover the empty stationhouse building. Phase 1, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) was an oral history project. This brought older people’s stories of the station to the children at our primary school, and shared the findings online and at an exhibition in the village hall in August 2024.
Phase 2 will be a feasibility study, during which our plans for the stationhouse will be tested in full. It will begin early in 2025.
Phase 3 will be the rebuilding project. We can’t wait!
We need your help!
If you would like to get involved in any of our work, or have pictures, memories or stories about the station, we’d like to hear from you. We are not (yet) doing any public fund-raising – that will come later – but there are lots of opportunities to get involved in all the different aspects of our work now. You may have specialist skills and experience to bring – that’s great – but you may also simply have stories to share or time to give. Whatever is the case, please get in touch. The success of our project will depend on everyone (local people and visitors, young and old) working together with a shared goal.
