Kingussie railway station


Kingussie railway station serves the town of Kingussie, Inverness-shire in the Highland Council Area of Scotland. The station is managed by Abellio ScotRail and is on the Highland Main Line.

History

The Inverness and Perth Junction Railway was authorised in 1861 for a line between and. It was built quickly, and was opened in sections; the last stretch, that between and, was opened on 9 September 1863; and one of the original stations was that at Kingussie. The current station buildings date from 1893 by the architect William Roberts.
The I&PJ amalgamated with other railways to form the Highland Railway in 1865, and at the 1923 Grouping the HR became part of the newly formed London, Midland and Scottish Railway. The adjacent stations were to the north, and to the south, although the former has now closed.
The station was host to a LMS caravan in 1935 and 1936 followed by two caravans from 1937 to 1939. A camping coach was also positioned here by the Scottish Region from 1953 to 1963, increasing to two coaches from 1964 to 1967.
It is from, located in Ruthven Road, Kingussie, about 200 yards south-east of the High Street. There are two platforms, both of conventional height. The Up line platform used to be at a slightly lower height, which was originally built to allow cattle to easily transfer to and from the wagons, and onto the adjacent market stance to the south of the station. This meant passengers had to be careful when alighting from a train as not all doors were given a portable step on the platform, and was not good for those with accessibility issues. In 2017, the platform was rebuilt to standard height. The station buildings are on the Down platform. A level crossing takes Ruthven Road over both tracks at the Inverness end of the station, with the local signal box at that end of the Up platform. The station is on the mainly single-track line from to Perth, and has a passing loop long, flanked by two platforms. Platform 1 on the down line can accommodate trains having twelve coaches, whereas platform 2 on the up line can hold thirteen.
Kingussie High School is close to the station, as are also the Highland Council offices serving the Badenoch and Strathspey area.

Services

There are eleven daily departures each way from the station, plus the Caledonian Sleeper. Seven of these run to Edinburgh Waverley and the others to. There is a daily through service to and from via Edinburgh and .
On Sundays there are seven departures each way including the Kings Cross train, along with the southbound sleeper.
From 2018, this station will be one of those to benefit from a package of timetable enhancements introduced by Transport Scotland and Scotrail. The current Perth to Inverness timetable will increase to hourly each way, with trains south of there running on alternate hours to Edinburgh & Glasgow. Journey times will also be reduced by 10 minutes to both cities.