The Keith and Dufftown Railway ("The Whisky Line") is a

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

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 ...

, running for from ,

Keith Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...

(

Ordnance Survey , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...

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 ...

) to () via () and Auchindachy. Originally the former

Great North of Scotland Railway The Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) was one of the two smallest of the five major Scottish railway companies prior to the 1923 Grouping, operating in the north-east of the country. Formed in 1845, it carried its first passengers the fr ...

Keith and Dufftown Railway The Keith and Dufftown Railway ("The Whisky Line") is a heritage railway in Scotland, running for from , Keith (Ordnance Survey grid reference ) to () via () and Auchindachy. Originally the former Great North of Scotland Railway's Kei ...

which was part of the link

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

with Elgin (with the Strathspey Railway and

Morayshire Railway The Morayshire Railway was the first railway to be built north of Aberdeen, Scotland. It received royal assent in 1846 but construction was delayed until 1851 because of the adverse economic conditions existing in the United Kingdom. The railwa ...

), the line was latterly a freight-only branch for

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 ...

, truncated at Dufftown and serving the distillery there. Regular passenger services had been withdrawn in May 1968, but in later years it hosted a series of ''Northern Belle'' summer Sunday lunch specials from Aberdeen. These ceased in 1991 and after several years disuse, the line passed into the hands of the current operator in 1998; regular heritage trains then began running in 2000. The line is open, and a regular service runs throughout the railway's operating season from March to September. Special events are also run, including Santa Specials and Scots Nights. These services are run on the Class 108 DMUs. Dufftown is the main centre of operation of the railway, and has a booking office, a waiting room and a café called the Sidings Café, which is open March to November. There are two headshunts and a loop. Work is being undertaken to install a new loop at Dufftown so that there can be two tracks going into the new engine shed. At Keith Town station, there is a booking office and a shop which sells railway memorabilia, books, Thomas the Tank Engine items and model railway items which are sold by members of the association. This shop too is also only open during the operating season. At present there is no connection to the

main line Mainline, ''Main line'', or ''Main Line'' may refer to: Transportation Railway * Main line (railway), the principal artery of a railway system * Main line railway preservation, the practice of operating preserved trains on an operational railw ...

: there are two 60 ft sections of track uplifted (these were removed in 1998 when the line was handed over). However, there are long-term plans to reconnect to the mainline; there were discussions about this between the K&DRA, the local MSP

Richard Lochhead Richard Neilson Lochhead (born 24 May 1969) is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician who is Minister for Just Transition, Employment and Fair Work and has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Moray since 2006. He was previou ...

and

Transport Scotland Transport Scotland ( gd, Còmhdhail Alba) is the national transport agency of Scotland. It was established by the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005, and began operating on 1 January 2006 as an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government. Organisat ...

in the autumn of 2015."Campaign to reconnect whisky railway to main lines"
Robertson, John '' The Press and Journal'' news article 9 October 2015; Retrieved 19 August 2016

Rolling stock

The railway also owns two BR Mk1 Coaches No81295 and No975758, and a Mk2f TSO. The Mk2f arrived to replace the two Pullman coaches that were returned south. The Keith and Dufftown also have 3 Canadian Sprinters which could be used to inspect the line, on top of all this the railway also has a variety of permanent way wagons, some of this includes, 2 "Grampus" wagons, a "Dogfish" ballast wagon, a "Salmon" wagon and a guard's van.

References

External links

Video footage of Dufftown railway station.

Video footage of the stations on the line. *
The Railway website
{{authority control Heritage railways in Scotland Transport in Moray Railway museums in Scotland Standard gauge railways in Scotland