How trainspotter Francis Bourgeois' great-great uncle saved Kyle to Inverness railway line

Press and Journal

21 hours ago

Francis Bourgeois has become the poster boy for railways, but if it wasn't for his great-great uncle Torquil Nicolson, Scotland would have lost its most scenic line.
Francis, whose real name is Luke Nicolson, is an avid trainspotter and engineer.
His unashamed, unadulterated joy at watching a train rumble by has made him a social media sensation.
While Francis is usually cheering and jumping with child-like glee at hearing the 'tones' of passing locos, a pilgrimage to the Kyle line saved by Torquil reduced the trainspotter to tears.
Kyle of Lochalsh entered the railway age when a line extension to Stromeferry opened in November 1897.
The link marked 'a new era in the social development of the inhabitants of the West Coast and the islands'.
In practical terms, the Kyle railway was described as 'one of the two lifelines to the West Coast and the Western Isles'.
And sentimentally, was deemed one of the finest scenic routes of any line in Britain.
But nostalgia is not a currency, and the line was a fiscal disaster, losing money from the day it opened.
Therefore, it would take a great deal of convincing and campaigning to save a loss-making endeavour at a time when bigger stations were being scrapped under Beeching.
But that's exactly what local man Torquil Nicolson did – for 11 years.
Torquil Nicolson was area manager of the Hydro-Electric Board at Kyle of Lochalsh and Skye, and later a councillor.
But with many strings to his bow he was the very definition of a community stalwart.
Really, he was the community.
Such was his prolific sense of duty, it's hard to find a committee or organisation he was not involved in on the West Coast.
He was born at Shieldaig in 1910, the eldest son of the Reverend Samuel Nicolson and his wife Annabel.
Brother Eoghan (known as Ewen) and sister Margaret followed soon after, and in 1918 Rev Nicolson took up the charge at Plockton.
The academic Nicolson children excelled at school, and all three won places at St Andrew's University, their father's alma mater.
But a childhood in Plockton equipped the boys with knowledge that could not be learned from books.
At Ewen's funeral many decades later, a friend said: 'Ewen had the practical kind of skills that came from a childhood spent in a small community thrown on its own resources.'
Certainly, Torquil was only 22 when he helped get Plockton Village Hall built in 1932.
But his electrical engineering career would take him away from home to England and Edinburgh.
In 1946, the Hydro Board launched an ambitious scheme at Nostie Bridge to harness energy from the glens to power homes in the north – and halt rural depopulation.
As area manager, Torquil was to oversee the colossal project, and he returned to Plockton with wife Isobel.
He was the heart and soul of village life; a Gaelic speaker and singer, sailor, bagpiper and president of the region's horticultural society.
Ingrained in the community, Torquil also fought to improve local roads, extend Broadford Hospital and got a new high school built in Plockton.
His long and distinguished career in local government began as a member of the then South West Ross District Council in 1950.
But, he is perhaps best remembered for leading the battle to save the Kyle-Inverness railway line.
The line was challenging to establish at the tail end of the 19th Century.
Gelignite, a highly explosive substance, was required to blast cuttings through compacted sandstone.
The line curved around the shores of Loch Carron, with 1000ft crags rising to the left and views of the frowning Cuillin Hills ahead.
The Highland Railway opened up the landscape, physically and metaphorically, creating picturesque views 'full of poetry and romance'.
After Erbusaig the line swept over the sea on a magnificent girder bridge, before skirting the shore and terminating at the Kyle pier.
Two tracks ran around the outside of the pier, and in the centre, handsome, 120ft-long station buildings were adorned with verandahs on both sides.
With seemingly no expense spared, the Kyle line would have to work hard to pay for itself.
But fishing and tourism alone could not underpin the railway. As early as 1961, Torquil warned the community would have to fight to retain the line.
Fears were realised 18 months later when the entire Inverness-Kyle line was earmarked for closure in the Beeching Report in March 1963.
A huge protest was held in Inverness – Highlanders closed ranks and it was described as 'the greatest Highland rebellion since 1745'.
Railway was vital in transporting sick patients to hospital in Inverness
But for British Railways to consider any reprieve, campaigners had to prove closure would cause hardship.
A hearing into the railway's future in March 1964 heard that the Kyle road was 51% overloaded and 'entirely unsuitable' for buses.
To bring it up to standard would cost £5-6 million – the equivalent of £88m today.
Torquil argued the Kyle line was the only all-weather transport link across the north of Scotland.
Even the Church of Scotland weighed in, arguing 'if the railway ceases to function in the north it is the end of life virtually for the people of the Highlands'.
While chairman of the hospital board said 70% of patient transfers from Caithness to Inverness were made by rail because it was quicker than ambulance.
In August 1964 British Railways announced it would retain the Kyle-Inverness line on the basis it was a lifeline. But protestors knew it was only a stay of execution.
It would have to keep justifying its existence, so the Kyle Line Defence Committee was established, lead by Torquil.
Duly, in 1969 the Minster for Transport said the annual subsidy of £179,000 to operate the line would stop.
And the following year, British Railways announced its intention to shut the line for good.
Torquil was poised for action; the strength of feeling to retain the line rippled far beyond the north.
But the day-to-day need for the railway was not obvious to those in high office.
If campaigners couldn't prove the railway was viable, they had to prove the alternative – buses – were not viable.
In 1971, the 'torturous' journey from Kyle was largely on single-track roads barely wide enough for coaches, with 'the odd sheep nibbling at the road's edge'.
The defence committee ran an experimental journey in a 41-seater coach to prove trains couldn't be equalled by buses.
The bus arrived 'only 30 minutes late' after negotiating sheep, ice and 'stopping to help a car which had plunged into a ditch'.
That same day, train passengers numbered 52 – far more than the bus could carry.
Highland Omnibuses admitted they could not meet that demand, let alone cope with 'prams, bicycles, fish and day-old chicks'.
A second public inquiry heard emphatically that the railway was 'the main artery to the West and isles'.
As chief witness, Torquil told how stuck bus passengers had to walk 2.5miles home in snow and how pupils lost schooldays because buses couldn't get through.
War hero and secret agent Patrick Dalzel-Job, the inspiration for James Bond, lived in Plockton.
He told the inquiry he had driven the Arctic, Finland and Norway, but said 'the Glen Shiel-Invermoriston road is undoubtedly the most dangerous road I have ever driven on'.
He added: 'I don't think in the public interest a bus should be allowed to drive on that road without chains.
'I've never driven on any road where the ice conditions are so unpredictable.'
Speaker Alistair Sutherland had been trapped on a bus in a snowdrift at Glenmoriston for 36 hours with no heating until a shepherd lead them to safety.
Torquil explained one week the previous winter the road was blocked four days out of five.
Campaigners won another two-year reprieve, but the now-rebranded British Rail vowed to close the line on January 1 1974.
Torquil wasted no time in conducting passenger surveys and initiatives, resulting in a 'remarkable increase' in usage.
'The Line to Skye', a film devised by Ross and Cromarty Council, was shown in the House of Commons which Torquil said emphasised 'the fact it was such an important line'.
But he had a new weapon in his arsenal: oil.
After the oil boom, Highland Board drastically reversed its opinion on closing the Kyle line, suggesting it may be 'premature' in view of industrial development.
A second test bus trip, carried out under summer conditions in August 1973, took even longer than the winter run.
Tourist traffic and wandering cattle were to blame for the bus running an hour behind schedule.
Come January 1974, the line remained open, the subsidy had been extended in light of oil.
The fight was not yet over, but even British Rail had started promoting the Kyle line as a 'magnificent journey' in its tourism PR.
Ross-shire county convener, the Earl of Cromartie, thrice asked in the House of Lords for an answer on the line's future.
He criticised authorities of 'shilly-shallying'. But no news appeared to be good news.
On July 31, transport minister Fred Mulley told the Commons all action directed towards the closure of the line would cease.
It was a hard-won fight; Ross and Cromarty MP Hamish Gray ended the debate by praising the Kyle Line Defence Committee.
Back home, Torquil described the line as 'the man who escaped the hangman's noose three times and was freed'.
He added: 'I am highly delighted. This justifies the fight we have had all these years.
'It is a case of third time lucky'.
Sadly Torquil died suddenly less than four years later in 1978, aged just 67.
His loss 'stunned people all over the Highlands and beyond'.
Various obituaries all concluded that of his many extraordinary achievements, saving the Kyle line was the greatest.
While his legacy is in the line, his achievement has been remembered by Francis Bourgeois, who, almost exactly 50 years later paid an emotional trainspotting visit to the Highlands.
He said on social media: 'This is a black 5 steam locomotive travelling over the Kyle line, which my great-great uncle Torquil saved from closure 50 years ago.
'And without his tireless campaigning for 11 years, I wouldn't be able to see this beautiful spectacle today.
'Thank you Torquil for helping to save such an amazing line, because without you I wouldn't be able to see the train.
'I'm overwhelmed with emotion, how beautiful that is.'