, symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = 158701 Thurso.jpg , caption = 158701 departing Thurso bound for , borough =

Thurso Thurso (pronounced ; sco, Thursa, gd, Inbhir Theòrsa ) is a town and former burgh on the north coast of the Highland council area of Scotland. Situated in the historical County of Caithness, it is the northernmost town on the island of Gre ...

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 , platforms = 1 , code = THS , original =

Sutherland and Caithness Railway The Sutherland and Caithness Railway was a Scottish railway company that built a line from Helmsdale, the terminus of the Duke of Sutherland's Railway to Wick and Thurso in Caithness, giving the northern towns access to Inverness. It was driven ...

, 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 = LMS , years = 28 July 1874 , events = 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 ...

, embedded = Thurso 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 ...

located in

, 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. ...

in the far north of

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 ...

. It serves the town of Thurso and its surrounding areas in the historic

county of Caithness Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded b ...

. It is also the nearest station to the port of

Scrabster Scrabster ( sco, Scraibster, gd, Sgrabastair/Sgrabstal) is a small settlement on Thurso Bay in Caithness on the north coast of Scotland. It is some from Thurso, from Wick, from Inverness and 271.7 miles (437.2 km) from Edinburgh. Scr ...

(about to the northwest), which has ferry services linking the mainland with

Stromness Stromness (, non, Straumnes; nrn, Stromnes) is the second-most populous town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the southwestern part of Mainland Orkney. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital. E ...

on the

Orkney Islands Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

. It is the northernmost station on the

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the p ...

network. The station is situated at the end of a short branch line off 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 ...

. It is down the line from (the other end of the branch), and from . Thurso station is managed by ScotRail, which also operates all trains serving the station.

History

The station opened on 28 July 1874. A wrought-iron

turntable A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

, in diameter, was built at the station by the Railway Steel and Plant Company of Manchester. The station was threatened with closure in the 1960s under the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...

. Until 2000, trains from would split in half at , with one portion going to and the other to Thurso. In the age of locomotive-hauled trains prior to the introduction of

diesel multiple unit A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...

s 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 ...

, a locomotive was based at Georgemas Junction to take the Thurso portion to and from the junction. The practice of splitting trains ended when s were introduced on the line since then all services run in full between Inverness and Wick ''via'' Thurso, in both directions, meaning they call at Georgemas Junction twice.eNRT December 2021 Edition, Table 219

Facilities

There is one platform, which is long enough to accommodate a nine-carriage train. The station is fully wheelchair-accessible, but it is not monitored by CCTV. The station has a ticket office, although there are no self-service ticket machines , except for some smartcard validators. Other facilities include: a small car park, a sheltered bike stand, a payphone, waiting rooms, toilets and a post box. There is a bus stop located directly outside the station, although the majority of bus services call at the nearby Miller Academy stop, to the north.

Passenger volume

The statistics cover twelve month periods that start in April.

Services

Despite being located at the end of the branch line, Thurso is not the terminus for any passenger services. On weekdays and Saturdays, the station is served by eight trains per day to , of which four continue to (via , , , and ), and four continue to . On Sundays the frequency drops to just two trains per day to Georgemas Junction, of which one goes to Inverness and one to Wick. An hourly shuttle between Wick and Thurso making use of Vivarail's Class 230 Battery Multiple Units has been proposed by the Friends of the Far North line, but to this date nothing has been confirmed.

References

Bibliography

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External links

RAILSCOT article on Sutherland and Caithness RailwayRAILSCOT page on ThursoScotRail North Highlands Timetable
{{Railway stations served by Abellio Scotrail Railway stations in Caithness Railway stations served by ScotRail Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1874 Former Highland Railway stations Railway stations serving harbours and ports in the United Kingdom Category B listed buildings in Highland (council area) Listed railway stations in Scotland Thurso Cardinal points of the Great British railway network