Month: November 2020

Returning by train to Southern England after a two-night stay in Perth seemed like the perfect opportunity to pay an Eve-of-Lockdown Two (4 November) call at the one Tyne Valley signalling location I had not previously visited, Wetheral.

Wetheral station is six miles east of Carlisle and stands high above the River Eden and at the opposite end of the impressive five-span Wetheral Viaduct to the slightly curious looking Corby Gates Signal Box. 

Together with the signal box at Dunkeld that featured in my previous post, another of the many Scottish boxes to enjoy listed status is the one at Errol, mid-way between Perth and Dundee and site of a former station, which only closed in September 1985.

Like Dunkeld, it is not only the signal box that is listed at Errol, but also the station building, built in 1847 for the Dundee & Perth Railway, as well in this case as the skeleton of a cast iron footbridge linking the two remarkably intact station platforms.

Take a 15½-mile journey north from Perth along the Highland Main Line and just as the A9 comes alongside the railway you will arrive at the first, and one of the remotest and most charming, stations along this magnificent route, Dunkeld & Birnam.

Despite noise from the nearby trunk road, this is a peaceful spot at which to spend a couple of hours on a sunny morning and to appreciate its fine listed station building, listed signal box and the handful of semaphore signals that are all in view from the station.