, symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = Lochailort railway station, Highland Council, Scotland. View of platforms looking towards Arisaig.jpg , caption = Looking towards Mallaig , borough =

Lochailort Lochailort ( , gd, Ceann Loch Ailleart) is a hamlet in Scotland that lies at the head of Loch Ailort, a sea loch, on the junction of the Road to the Isles ( A830) between Fort William and Mallaig with the A861 towards Salen and Strontian. It ...

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 ...

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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 = 1 , code = LCL , original =

Mallaig Extension Railway The Mallaig Extension Railway is a railway line in Highland, Scotland. It runs from Banavie Junction (New) on the Banavie Pier branch of the West Highland Railway to Mallaig. The previous "Banavie Junction" closer to Fort William was renamed ...

West Highland Railway The West Highland Railway was a railway company that constructed a railway line from Craigendoran (on the River Clyde west of Glasgow, Scotland) to Fort William and Mallaig. The line was built through remote and difficult terrain in two stages ...

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North British Railway The North British Railway was a British railway company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1844, with the intention of linking with English railways at Berwick. The line opened in 1846, and from the outset the company followe ...

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LNER LNER may refer to: * London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 * London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a typ ...

, years = 1 April 1901 , events = Station opened , 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 ...

Lochailort 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

in the

Council area in

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 ...

. This station is on the

West Highland Line The West Highland Line ( gd, Rathad Iarainn nan Eilean - "Iron Road to the Isles") is a railway line linking the ports of Mallaig and Oban in the Scottish Highlands to Glasgow in Central Scotland. The line was voted the top rail journey in th ...

, between

Glenfinnan Glenfinnan ( gd, Gleann Fhionnain ) is a hamlet in Lochaber area of the Highlands of Scotland. In 1745 the Jacobite rising began here when Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie") raised his standard on the shores of Loch Shiel. S ...

and Beasdale, from the former

Banavie Banavie (; gd, Banbhaidh) is a small settlement near Fort William in the Highland Council Area of Scotland. One of the closest villages to Ben Nevis, it is about northeast of Fort William town centre, next to Caol and Corpach. It has been sug ...

Junction.

manage the station and operate all services.

History

Lochailort station was opened on 1 April 1901 when the

opened.Butt (1995), page 147 The station was constructed with two platforms and was an electric token

block post A block post in railway signalling is the signal box at one end of a block section. German practice In Germany, block posts are known as ''Blockstellen'' (abbreviation: ''Bk'') and are defined as railway facilities on the open line that mark the ...

, working to Glenfinnan on one side and Arisaig on the other, until the Up loop was lifted in 1966. The loops were lengthened during the Second World War and a new brick

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

erected, the foundations of which now can still be seen at the Arisaig end of the single platform now in use. The second platform fell into disuse in the 1970s. A

camping coach Camping coaches were holiday accommodation offered by many railway companies in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland from the 1930s. The coaches were old passenger vehicles no longer suitable for use in trains, which were converted to ...

was positioned here by the Scottish Region from 1960 to 1965, the first year a standard camping coach was used, then it was replaced with a ''Pullman'' camping coach.

Facilities

The facilities here are very basic, consisting of just a shelter, a bench, a help point, some bike racks and a small car park. The station is step-free. 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

Four services call here on request each way on weekdays and Saturdays, and three each way on Sundays. These are mostly through trains between Mallaig and , through one each way only runs between Mallaig and Fort William.eNRT December 2021 Edition, Table 218

References

Bibliography

* * * * * *

External links

Video footage & history of Lochailort railway station

Video of Inverailort House
Railway stations in Highland (council area) Former North British Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1901 Railway stations served by ScotRail Railway request stops in Great Britain {{Highland-railstation-stub