, symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = Nairn railway station, August 2013.JPG , caption = The station in 2013 , borough =

Nairn Nairn (; gd, Inbhir Narann) is a town and royal burgh in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is an ancient fishing port and market town around east of Inverness, at the point where the River Nairn enters the Moray Firth. It is the tradit ...

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 , 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 ...

, platforms = 2 , code = NRN , opened = , original = Inverness and Nairn Railway and Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railway , pregroup =

Highland Railway The Highland Railway (HR) was one of the smaller British railways before the Railways Act 1921, operating north of Perth railway station in Scotland and serving the farthest north of Britain. Based in Inverness, the company was formed by merger ...

, postgroup =

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 ...

, years = 1886 , events = Station buildings rebuilt , 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 = Nairn 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 Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

serving the town 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 station is managed and served by

and is on the Aberdeen to Inverness Line, between

Forres Forres (; gd, Farrais) is a town and former royal burgh in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately northeast of Inverness and west of Elgin. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions. There a ...

and

Inverness Airport Inverness Airport ( gd, Port-adhair Inbhir Nis) is an international airport situated at Dalcross, north-east of the city of Inverness, Scotland. It is owned by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL). The airport is the main gateway fo ...

, measured from

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

via the former Dava route. It is a category B

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

History

The station was first opened in 1855 by the Inverness and Nairn Railway. In 1857, the line was extended eastwards to Dalvey. The route from Aberdeen to Inverness was merged into one company, the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railway, in 1861. In 1885 the Highland Railway Company agreed to improve the facilities at Nairn. The station buildings were replaced with improved accommodation for passenger and staff. The new building comprised a front elevation of on the north side of the platforms. It was constructed of dressed freestone and consisted of ticket and parcels offices, waiting hall, verandah, ladies’ and gentlemen’s waiting rooms, left luggage and porters’ room. The gables of the cross wings were surmounted with the Scotch thistle, the Prince of Wales feather, and other designs sculpted in stone. The masonry work was completed by Mr. Squair of Nairn. The work was completed in 1886. At the same time a new station master’s house was erected. The platforms were extended to around and raised in height to the level of the carriages. A new iron foot bridge over the line connected the platforms, avoiding passengers using a foot crossing over the running lines. The bridge over Cawdor Road was also widened at the same time. Many of the local stations either side of here succumbed to 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 ...

between 1965 and 1968, though Nairn was one of those that survived the cutbacks. The station is from (measured via ), and 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 which can each accommodate an eight-coach train. The station was notable for being the last working example of

signalling principles, where a signal box was provided at each end to work the signals & points whilst the key token instruments for working the single line were located in the main building. The distance between the boxes was such that a bicycle was officially provided by BR (and later

Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of ...

) for the signaller to use. The practice came to an end in April 2000, when the station was resignalled with colour lights and control shifted to a panel in the station building - as a result, most passenger services use the northern (former eastbound) platform in both directions (the southern one is now only used by Aberdeen-bound services if two trains are scheduled to pass here). Control of the signalling at the station has since transferred to a new workstation in the Inverness signalling centre, following a 10-day line closure that also saw the loop at Elgin lengthened and a new station and loop commissioned at Forres. A replacement bus service ran whilst the work was in progress, with the line reopening on schedule on 17 October 2017.

Facilities

The station has a ticket office, ticket machine and accessible toilet on platform 1, adjacent to some bike racks and one of the car parks. The other is adjacent to platform 2, which is equipped with a flower shop and a help point. There is step-free access to both platforms, but not between them, as the bridge linking them does not have lifts.

Services

As of May 2022, there are seventeen daily departures from the station each way on weekdays and Saturdays. Most are through trains between

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), a ...

and

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histor ...

, but some trains start from or terminate at Elgin. One departure runs through to

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

in the morning, and one in the evening runs to

Stonehaven Stonehaven ( , ) is a town in Scotland. It lies on Scotland's northeast coast and had a population of 11,602 at the 2011 Census. After the demise of the town of Kincardine, which was gradually abandoned after the destruction of its royal cast ...

. On Sundays there are five through trains each way to Inverness and Aberdeen, with two more from Glasgow to Elgin via Inverness that call eastbound.eNRT May 2022 Edition, Table 214

Cultural References

The station appeared as 'Inverness' in the 1970 film '' The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes''.

References

External links