The Wester Pipe Railway is a

narrow gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structur ...

that mainly runs from Hastigrow on the B876 road to

Mybster Mybster is a small village, in Caithness, Scottish Highlands, and is in the Scottish council area of Highland. Mybster lies northwest of the Loch of Toftingall, with the village of Watten lying directly to the east, and Thurso located north a ...

on the A9, all within

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 by ...

. The line is

double track A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most lin ...

for most of the route and uses

Metre gauge Metre-gauge railways are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. The metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by European colonial powers, such as the French, British and German Empires. In Europe, la ...

. It is used to transport pipeline segments to the sea. It is the second northernmost railway in the United Kingdom with the first being the spur to Thurso 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 ...

Route

The line starts in Hastigrow Runs down crossing with the far north line in Mains of Watten before passing straight through

Watten Watten may refer to: Places * Watten, Nord, a commune in the Nord ''département'' of France ** ''Blockhaus d'Éperlecques'' or Watten bunker, intended to be a launching facility for the V-2 ballistic missile * Watten, Highland, a village in Cai ...

itself. Then it heads west towards the Houstry of Dunn before heading South-West to

, not following the route of the B870. Around Halfway through the route there's a small depot and an area full of many resurfacing pipelines. There is an additional spur from Hastigrow to Bridge of Wester on the coast, by the port of

Subsea 7 Subsea 7 S.A. is a Luxembourgish-domiciled subsea engineering, construction and services company serving the offshore energy industry. The company is registered in Luxembourg with its headquarters in London. History The company was formed by the ...

Operations

The railway is owned and operated by

, who operate the railway and the pipelines around it to their port in Westerloch near Wick. The railway uses ocean going tugs to operated. Pipeline segments are combined at a site on the inland end of the railway and then towed to the sea, using the vessels. The individual pipes are often brought to Scotland by train as well. They are transported onto the railway by being taken to Georgemas Junction and then finish their journey to the Subsea 7 site by road. Entire pipelines are transported along the rail, giving it the record for the longest thing ever to be transported by rail: a 7.7 km long pipe, only 100 metres shorter than the main section of railway itself. Many of the tracks were re-laid in 2014.

References

{{coord, 58.508, -3.135, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Metre gauge railways in the United Kingdom Narrow gauge railways in Scotland Year of establishment missing Buildings and structures in Caithness