The Callander and Oban Railway

The Callander and Oban Railway is a historic railway, part of which is abandoned and part still in use.

In July 1923, The Railway Magazine carried an article about the Callander & Oban Railway (C&O) written by G.F. Gairns.

Gairns commented that the C&O constituted the third of the three great mountain lines: the Perth-Inverness line of the Highland Railway; the West Highland Line of the North British Railway; and the Callander & Oban Railway (including the Ballachulish Extension).

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2024/12/22/the-callander-and-oban-railway/

 

It would’ve made for a spectacular preserved line, but you can’t save them all. I walked part of it around Strathyre a couple of years ago… a beautiful landscape but the A84 has chopped the track bed up here and there, and it seemed well used by cyclists and walkers even in December.

Simon

 

The walk along the old trackbed from the site of Glenoglehead station is spectacular, not at all difficult and worth the time for anyone visiting the area.
We can always dream of what might have been had the line survived, but at least we have photographs by W J V Anderson to see what it was like.

In her younger days my mother, who came from Crieff, was able to travel this way via Balquhidder and Connel Ferry to visit an aunt who lived in Appin on the west coast. Such was the cross country connectivity by rail lost with the closures of the 50s and 60s.

https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/lochlomond/glen-ogle.shtml