page_title: Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway
section_title: Highland Railway
hierarchical_section_title: Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway / Operations / Highland Railway
caption_attribution_description: Railway Junctions in Spean Bridge pre grouping
context_page_description: The Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway was a branch-line railway built in Scotland, connecting the named places with the main line at Spean Bridge. It opened in 1903.
  Serving exceptionally sparsely inhabited areas it was never commercially successful, but it rekindled hostilities between larger railways over a planned railway connection along the Great Glen reaching Inverness; however this scheme never materialised.
  Passenger train operation ceased in 1933 and the line closed completely in 1946.
context_section_description: A 4-4-0 tank engine, no 52 was generally used as the motive power during the Highland Railway period. There were four trains each way daily. In September 1905, King Edward VII travelled over the line from Spean Bridge to Invergarry with George Cadogan, 5th Earl Cadogan and Countess Cadogan.
  The Fort Augustus Pier station was on Loch Ness and tourist traffic was contemplated. However the dominant steamer operator on the loch, David MacBrayne Ltd, declined to use the railway pier and it saw very little use. The extension to the pier involved a hand-operated swing bridge over the Caledonian Canal and a viaduct over the River Oich. Passenger traffic on the pier extension was suspended from 1 October 1906, although occasional goods trains ran until July 1924 when the extension was finally closed permanently.
  In March 1906 many areas of the western Highlands experienced exceptional rainfall and flooding. Describing the dislocation to railways in the Lochaber area the Scotsman reported 
  The most serious damage reported, however, occurred on the Invergarry and Fort-Augustus Railway, in the neighbourhood of Letterfinlay, where two large sections of the line have been washed away by the enormous rush of water down the hillside. In consequence of this mishap, no traffic occurred over the line on Saturday.
  The line was heavily loss-making, due to the sparse population and the availability of a direct alternative in the steamers on the parallel Caledonian Canal. The Highland Railway decided to cut its losses: confident that its supremacy at Inverness was no longer at risk. It withdrew its trains from 1 May 1907.
  The abandonment of the Invergarry and Fort-Augustus Railway by the Highland Railway Company will surprise no-one who knows the conditions under which that line is at present worked. The railway ought really to be a branch and feeder of the West Highland Railway. Beginning at Spean Bridge on the latter system it is laid through a beautiful but sparsely-populated country to Fort-Augustus, midway between Inverness and Fort-William. For a considerable part of the way it runs alongside the chain of lochs forming the Caledonian Canal, and is thus in direct competition to the steamboat traffic on the Canal. Fort-Augustus is a small town of very inconsiderable importance except as a tourist centre, and none of the other villages tapped by the line is large or busy.
caption: A 1909 Railway Clearing House map showing the Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway, with a portion of the West Highland Railway
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