, symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = Railway station at Ardgay - geograph.org.uk - 2501620.jpg , caption = The platforms at Ardgay station, looking south , borough =

Ardgay Ardgay ( gd, Àird Gaoith or ''Àird Ghaoithe'') high wind" - see below Further reading: MacGregoris a small Scottish village on the south west shore of the Dornoch Firth, Sutherland and is 1 mile south from Bonar Bridge and lies at the ent ...

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

, country = Scotland , coordinates = , grid_name =

Grid reference A projected coordinate system, also known as a projected coordinate reference system, a planar coordinate system, or grid reference system, is a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on the Earth using cartesian coordin ...

, grid_position = , manager =

ScotRail ScotRail Trains Limited, trading as ScotRail ( gd, Rèile na h-Alba), is a Scottish train operating company that is publicly owned by Scottish Rail Holdings on behalf of the Scottish Government. It has been operating the ScotRail franchise a ...

, platforms = 2 , code = ARD , original =

Inverness and Ross-shire Railway The Inverness and Ross-shire Railway was a Scottish railway company formed in 1860 to build a line from Inverness to Invergordon. It opened in 1862 as far as Dingwall and in 1863 to Invergordon. It was extended to a Bonar Bridge station in 1864 ...

Sutherland Railway The Sutherland Railway was a railway company authorised in 1865 to build a line from Bonar Bridge station to Brora, a distance of nearly 33 miles, in the north of Scotland. This was to be continuation of a route from Inverness to Bonar Bridge tha ...

, pregroup =

Highland Railway The Highland Railway (HR) was one of the smaller United Kingdom, British railways before the Railways Act 1921, operating north of Perth railway station, Scotland, Perth railway station in Scotland and serving the farthest north of Britain. Base ...

, postgroup = LMSR , years = 1 October 1864 , events = Opened as Bonar Bridge , years1 = 2 May 1977 , events1 = Renamed as Ardgay , mpassengers = , footnotes = Passenger statistics from the

Office of Rail and Road The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the economic and safety regulation of Britain's railways, and the economic monitoring of National Highways. ORR regulates Network Rail by setting its ...

, embedded = Ardgay railway station is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

serving the village of

and its neighbour

Bonar Bridge Bonar Bridge ( gd, Drochaid a' Bhanna, ) is a village on the north bank of the Kyle of Sutherland to the west and the Dornoch Firth to the east in the Parish of Creich in the Highland council area of Scotland. The Kyle of Sutherland ("the Kyle" ...

in the

council area {{Unreferenced, date=May 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) A council area is one of the areas defined in Schedule 1 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 and is under the control of one of the local authorities in Scotland created by that Act. ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. The station is on the

Far North Line The Far North Line is a rural railway line entirely within the Highland area of Scotland, extending from Inverness to Thurso and Wick. As the name suggests, it is the northernmost railway in the United Kingdom. The line is entirely single-trac ...

, from , between

Tain Tain ( Gaelic: ''Baile Dhubhthaich'') is a royal burgh and parish in the County of Ross, in the Highlands of Scotland. Etymology The name derives from the nearby River Tain, the name of which comes from an Indo-European root meaning 'flow'. The ...

and

Culrain Culrain (Cul Raoin) is a small village in Sutherland, Highland, Scotland. Location It lies west of Ardgay, beside the Kyle of Sutherland about west from the village of Bonar Bridge, where several rivers converge to flood into the sea through l ...

, who manage the station, operate all services.

History

Opened on 1 October 1864 as Bonar Bridge by the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railway and designed by

Joseph Mitchell Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

, it became the meeting point of the

and the

. The station joined the

, later becoming part of the

London, Midland and Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally u ...

during the

Grouping Grouping may refer to: * Muenchian grouping * Principles of grouping * Railways Act 1921, also known as Grouping Act, a reorganisation of the British railway system * Grouping (firearms), the pattern of multiple shots from a sidearm See also ...

of 1923; it then passed on to the

Scottish Region of British Railways The Scottish Region (ScR) was one of the six regions created on British Railways (BR) and consisted of ex-London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and ex-London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) lines in Scotland. It existed from the creation o ...

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

in 1948. It was renamed Ardgay on 2 May 1977. When sectorisation was introduced by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

in the 1980s, the station was served by

until the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industr ...

Platform layout

The station has a

passing loop A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains or ...

long, flanked by two platforms. Platform 1 on the southbound line can accommodate trains having ten coaches, but platform 2 on the northbound line can only hold five.

Facilities

South bound service at Ardgay (158718) (geograph 5442632)

Both platforms have benches, but only platform 1 has a designated waiting area, as seen in the photo on the left. Platform 2 also has a help point, and there is a car park and bike racks adjacent to it. Platform 2 has step-free access, but platform 1 can only be accessed from the footbridge. As there are no facilities to purchase tickets, passengers must buy one in advance, or from the guard on the train.

Passenger volume

The statistics cover twelve month periods that start in April.

Services

Lunch time arrival at Ardgay bound for Wick (geograph 4817878)

On Mondays to Saturdays, there are seven trains a day southbound to and five a day northbound, four of which continue on to (the other terminates here). On Sundays, there is one train in each direction.eNRT December 2021 Edition, Table 219

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

* Railway stations in Sutherland Railway stations served by ScotRail Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1864 Former Highland Railway stations Listed railway stations in Scotland Category C listed buildings in Highland (council area) {{Highland-railstation-stub