Fortrose Branch

The Fortrose Branch, also known as the Black Isle Railway, was a railway branch line serving Fortrose in the Black Isle, in the north of Scotland. It was built by the Highland Railway as a tactical measure to exclude a rival railway company.

It opened in 1894, making a junction with the Far North Railway Line at Muir of Ord. Serving an agricultural and coastal area, it was never commercially successful and in 1951 the passenger service was withdrawn. A goods train service continued, but it too closed in 1960. There is now no railway use of the former line.

The Highland Railway was established in 1865 and became dominant in the area of Scotland between Perth, Inverness and north and west of there.

The relatively thin population density in its area of influence meant that great profitability was not available to the company, and it fought strenuously to retain dominance in the area that it considered belonged to it alone. It operated the Far North Railway Line from Inverness to Wick and Thurso, but the difficult geography meant that the line formed a wide sweep round the western end of the Black Isle, to avoid crossing the Beauly Firth and the Cromarty Firth.

The Highland Railway was surprised when in 1889 the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNoSR) proposed the construction of a railway to Fortrose, a town on the Black Isle located on the coast of the Moray Firth opposite Fort George. The GNoSR was operated a network from Aberdeen and the nearest place to Inverness served by it was at Elgin, some distance away. The branch would have been detached from the owning railway, but running through the Black Isle it would have made a junction with the Highland Railway at Muir of Ord. A ferry operation from Fortrose to Ardersier, on the south side of the Moray, was included in the plans. Ardersier was then known as Campbelltown, and a railway branch to it was included. Two other schemes striking into Highland territory were proposed at the same time, elevating Highland Railway discomfort about its competitive position.

The two companies had been adversaries for some time, and in 1883 and the following years there had been a state of continual warfare over junctions, frontiers and running powers.

The Highland saw at once that if this branch were built, it would be easy for the GNoSR to demand running powers into Inverness to reach its branch, and in that way the rival company would have gained access to the Highland’s stronghold.

The Highland Railway began preparing its opposition to the GNoSR when the latter wrote proposing a "solution" to the "problem": that the GNoS should simply be given running powers for its Aberdeen trains into Inverness.

...
Wikipedia