Let's go out of Sneck

[IBM]

Have you stayed here at anytime?

 

[+weeman]

No, but i know where you were.

[+snorbens_caleyman]

No, but I've played that golf course... 

[IBM]

5 hours ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

No, but I've played that golf course... 

I have not stayed there or played golf 

[Robert]

Not stayed there or played golf there either. It looks like Dornoch Station Hotel to me. 

[IBM]

There was a fly pass by the Red Arrows yesterday. 
 

[+snorbens_caleyman]

I've seen the Red Arrows a few times, and these are my favourite pictures of them.  September 1993 - nearly 30 years ago - on Jersey.  There is an annual free air show there, over the bay to the west of the capital, St Helier.  Most people gather along the shoreline, but we went out to Elizabeth Castle, which is about 1 km out into the bay.

It turned out that the Red Arrows used the castle as the focus of their display, flying past it at low altitude, and even coming straight down towards it when coming out of loops.

I've also been in Cyprus in the Spring.  Before the summer season in the UK, they go down to RAF Akrotiri to develop and practise their routines.  I spent one afternoon parked just outside the base, watching an extended display by them.

 

[+snorbens_caleyman]

 

[IBM]

Good photos. The fly pass at Dornoch was a warm up before the families display at Lossiemouth four minutes later which had other planes as well. 

[IBM]

Should be easy. 

[IBM]

Here is another view. 

[IBM]

A ruin not far away. 

[IBM]

If you reach the mannie you are to far north

[Robert]

You’ve beaten me!

[IBM]

The house was a station on the main line north and there was a branch line went past the old castle. 

[+snorbens_caleyman]

The ruined castle is Skelbo.

Your second shot is from the layby at the north end of the Mound, at the top of Loch Fleet.

Your house is a nice holiday cottage just north across the river from the layby, 7 nights from £599.  Might be a bit noisy since it's literally next to the A9.

But I don't think it was the station - that appears to be the building that is a couple of hundred yards past the cottage, along the unsurfaced track.

Am Baile has a postcard - https://www.ambaile.org.uk/asset/27972/ - which shows the railway and the road at that point, as well as a "station building", which looks like a cottage for the attendant for the level crossing there. I think that is the house in your photo. Unless I'm going crazy - always a possibility - the road nowadays follows the line of of the railway, pointed directly at the cottage, and the old road embankment has gone.

 

 

 

 

[+snorbens_caleyman]

BTW, I am not a railway enthusiast.  But during the summer I was at the Bo'ness and Kinneil railway.  The station at Bo'ness has a second-hand bookshop, where I picked up two different books about the development of the Highland Railway for the vast sum of three quid.

So, given the hints you had dropped, it was a case of checking where the "branch line" going past a castle south of Golspie was - the Dornoch Light Railway.  After that it was straightforward.

 

[IBM]

1 hour ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

BTW, I am not a railway enthusiast.  But during the summer I was at the Bo'ness and Kinneil railway.  The station at Bo'ness has a second-hand bookshop, where I picked up two different books about the development of the Highland Railway for the vast sum of three quid.

So, given the hints you had dropped, it was a case of checking where the "branch line" going past a castle south of Golspie was - the Dornoch Light Railway.  After that it was straightforward.

 

I think you are 

The house I thought was the old station was the bridge keepers cottage and your cottage is still there.  I am learning more local history all the time.  Check out the links below.

The Mound, Golspie - ARCH Highland

MHG45526 - Mound Bridge, Loch Fleet - Highland Historic Environment Record

[+snorbens_caleyman]

16 hours ago, IBM said:

I think you are 

No, honest I'm not!  I don't have any notebooks filled with loco numbers, or photos of old rolling stock...

But the stories of the railways in the Highlands are fascinating.  There are the engineering challenges which had to be overcome to build them.  Just as interesting are the commercial shenanigans between the companies competing to build the railways and link places, and the financing by large investments from businessmen and land owners.  Not to mention the operational problems enountered, especially in bad weather.

On a personal note, I discovered just a few years ago that one of my great-grandfathers used to work for Highland Railways, as a fitter's labourer in the engine shed which was just about where Morrison's is now on Millburn Road.  He was killed by a loco reversing into the station.  It looks as though they had to clock in and out in an office in the station, and the quickest way was to walk along the tracks.

The story is here - John Smith - great-grandfather.pdf  The Fatal Accident Inquiry would probably come to very different conclusions today!

I had never heard of this, and neither had my father's brother, who was the only surviving person in my family who might have known.  But at least it explains why my father and I were both named "John ... Smith"

 

[IBM]

Thanks for that John 

You are right about the building of local railways and land owners, one example is Mr Fletcher of Rosehaugh House on the Black Isle who had a station built at Avoch after allowing the Fortrose line to pass over his land and I am sure the owner of Skelbo Castle in Sutherland did the same on the Dornoch line.

A very interesting local story about your great grandfather.  I have found many things in my family tree that were not talked about and covered up by the family like child deaths and illegitimate children who were often brought up by grandparents.  I spend a lot of time on Ancestry and Scotlands People. 

[+weeman]

From Am Baillie site

The Mound railway station, late 1950s. 

Located on the Far North Line between #Rogart and #Golspie, the Mound was also the junction for the #Dornoch Light Railway. The station closed to passenger traffic in 1960 and to goods traffic in 1964
#railways #locomotives

[source: Highland Railway Society]

[IBM]

Another easy one 

 

[IBM]

On the way to see this

[+snorbens_caleyman]

Here's one of my Dad's photos from 1980.  There's a bit of a giveaway in it!

I'm guessing that you might have been standing on that bridge, if it's still there?

 

[IBM]

That’s right. I was at the Steam Fair at Boat of Garten.