The Railway Touring Club

Went along a local line today, I couldn’t decide to go out on the MTB or Road, with the wind making both un-fun, so decided to get the slow train out instead.

I’ve walked and ridden this bit before, but always with someone, a dog or been smashing it to get somewhere else.

This was a nice chilled ramble and a chance to have a proper look at what’s left.

The Aberfeldy Spur line used to join the Highland Main Line (to Inverness) at Logierait Junction (where there is now a Highland Railways carriage) and head off to Aberfeldy, it’s terminus. I picked it up just before it gets into Grandtully, which is the twin village of the one I live in, Strathtay.

You can ride a lot of the route from Logierait, even crossing the impressive viaduct that goes over the Tay and is now a locally maintained road crossing. From then on the low level embankment crosses fields and pops up in most of them as an easily traceable track bed, some of it has been removed though. That’s an adventure for another day though.

I set off from the bridge at Hough of Grandtully where the bridge deck has been cut out, just leaving the abutments. You can then follow the line behind the Hough farm, and across the fields as a footpath/track. You then come up to the old Grandtully station, which is now the SCA campsite. The goods platforms are still visible and also the SCA have a few nice photos of it in better days.

Pressing on under the road to Aberfeldy you stay high on embankment, with the Tay close to the right of you. The track bed is intact and used to get to fishing beats and a local forest camp project, so it’s in good condition. You pass under some solid stone bridges and over a few as well, used to cross the various burns that drain into the Tay.

Past the forest camp and old halt, where they still have a timetable tacked onto the shed, the trackbed goes deep into a cutting and a slight gradient comes up. There are drainage works taking place atm, so going was a wee bit grim...

The gradient keeps on up untill you ‘peak’ around Grandtully castle (not near Grandtully 🤷🏻‍♂️) and then you feel the ‘tip’ as the track bed races downhill. The Tay is now hard on your right and the embankment sweeps around the rivers curve, giving a great view. But that’s the last decent navigable bit of embankment....

The path drops away as this is the point that the track crosses the road and stops becoming obviously rideable. You can see one abutment survives though. As there is right to roam, you could go and have a look, but tbh, it just goes across rough pasture and the small bridges that are interesting have all been removed :(

The path carries on next to the river and it’s a decent ride tbf. The path pops out opposite Dewars Disillery, where they have a liveried Tank Engine on some rails, that is probably on the old alignment, but it’s hard to tell.

The embankment reappears after the distillery and you can get on top of it under a small bridge, you can then ride the dead straight road into Aberfeldy, where CO-OP now occupies the goods yard and main station complex, but some station buildings remain, as does the Hotel on Dunkeld Road.

I rode back across the GC bridge that’s condemned, made of plastic and scarily wobbly, then down the back road home.

Was out just over an hour and was a decent little escape

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