Bridge of Orchy railway station

Bridge of Orchy
Scottish Gaelic: Drochaid Urchaidh
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Location
Place	Bridge of Orchy
Local authority	Argyll and Bute
Coordinates
Grid reference	NN300394
Operations
Station code	BRO
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Number of platforms	2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2004/05	4,941
2005/06	5,112
2006/07	5,108
2007/08	5,966
2008/09	6,240
2009/10	5,416
2010/11	6,192
2011/12	5,890
2012/13	5,736
2013/14	5,932
2014/15	6,024
History
Original company	West Highland Railway
Pre-grouping	North British Railway
Post-grouping	LNER
7 August 1894	Opened
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Bridge of Orchy from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.
UK Railways portal

Bridge of Orchy railway station is a railway station in the village of Bridge of Orchy in the west of Scotland. This station is on the West Highland Line. Being an island platform, access is via a subway.

History

This station opened by the West Highland Railway on 7 August 1894.

The station was laid out with a crossing loop around an island platform and sidings on the east side of the station.

On 1 February 1987, the crossing loop was altered to right-hand running. The original Down platform has thus become the Up platform, and vice versa. The change was made in order to simplify shunting at this station, by removing the need to hand-pump the train-operated loop points to access the sidings.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Upper Tyndrum		Abellio ScotRail West Highland Line		Rannoch
Upper Tyndrum		Caledonian Sleeper Highland Caledonian Sleeper		Rannoch
	Historical railways
Tyndrum		North British Railway West Highland Railway		Gorton

Signalling

The signal box, which had 16 levers, was situated at the south end of the island platform. From the time of its opening in 1894, the West Highland Railway was worked throughout by the electric token system.

In 1967, the method of working between Crianlarich and Rannoch was changed to the Scottish Region Tokenless Block system. The Up loop at Bridge of Orchy was signalled for running in either direction and the signal box was able to 'switch out' when not required.

In August 1985, the method of working between Crianlarich and Rannoch reverted to the electric token block system. The semaphore signals were removed on 24 November 1985 in preparation for the introduction of Radio Electronic Token Block (RETB).

The RETB system was commissioned by British Rail between Upper Tyndrum and Fort William Junction on 29 May 1988. This resulted in the closure of Bridge of Orchy signal box (amongst others). The RETB is controlled from a Signalling Centre at Banavie railway station.

The Train Protection & Warning System was installed in 2003.

Station building

The station building is now used as a bunkhouse for those walking the West Highland Way.

Services

2012 services

Monday to Saturday, northbound, Bridge of Orchy has three services to Mallaig and one service to Fort William (Highland Caledonian Sleeper). Southbound, there are three services to Glasgow Queen Street and one service to London Euston (Highland Caledonian Sleeper, Saturdays excepted). On Sundays, there is just one service northbound to Mallaig (two in summer), one service southbound to Glasgow Queen Street (two in summer) and one service (Highland Caledonian Sleeper) to London Euston.

Locality

The Bridge of Orchy Hotel is opposite the end of the road down from the station.

References

Sources

• Butt (1995), page 43