ScotRail confirms Altnabreac Station has reopened to the public; services to the Highland station, which sits on the Far North Line in the middle of the Flow Country UNESCO World Heritage Site in Caithness, resumed on April 6 after almost 18 months

The 18-month long closure of a remote Highland railway station is finally over after trains once again began calling at it.

Altnabreac Station, which sits on the Far North Line in the middle of the Flow Country miles from any public roads, was removed from timetables back in November 2023 following an access dispute with a neighbour.

This resulted in the station being dropped from schedules while new a passenger access track was constructed and station furniture reinstated and updated.

And trains have once again been calling at the request stop since the evening of Sunday, April 6.

Passengers can now buy tickets to and from the Caithness destination.

Confirming the resumption of services when approached by this newspaper, a ScotRail spokesperson said: “ScotRail services resumed calls at Altnabreac on Sunday, April 6, following infrastructure and station works carried out by Network Rail Scotland and ScotRail.”

The return of services has been welcomed by the Friends of the Far North Line, with its convenor, Ian Budd, voicing his delight that it has been reintroduced in time for the summer season - especially given the Flow Country has become a UNESCO World Heritage site in the period since the station’s initial closure.

“The Friends of the Far North Line is delighted that the station has reopened in time for the summer,” he said. “We hope to see the installation of the Request-to-Stop kiosk proceed, now that the station has reopened.”

But, while the reopening of the station has been hailed as positive news, the very quiet resumption of services with little notice has left some rail passengers scratching their heads.

Confirmation that the station was reopening on April 6 only appeared to emerge two days before it did so, when ScotRail’s twitter account confirmed the news in a short response to a query from eagle-eyed rail enthusiasts who had spotted the station on upcoming online crew diagrams.

But apart from that sole tweet, and a brief note on Altnabreac’s station details page on ScotRail’s website, nothing else appears to have been said by the rail operator to let passengers know ahead of services resuming..

And, although passengers buying tickets online can once again pick up ones for Altnabreac via the ScotRail website, those using its app were still unable to do so a full week after services had already resumed. At the time of writing, the downloadable PDF timetable for the Far North Line has also still not been updated to include Altnabreac as a destination or its arrival/departure times.

“If passengers don’t know they can use it again, why would they look to buy tickets for it?” said one puzzled rail-goer.

“You’d think a station reopening to passengers after almost 18 months might warrant a wee bit more publicity than a single reply tweet buried within a thread on social media - and they haven’t even updated the downloadable timetable to include it yet!

“I know the nature of the station’s closure was an unusual one, but does anyone honestly believe that a station reopening anywhere else after 18 months would merit so little publicity?

“If this was in the central belt, ScotRail would’ve been shouting it from the rooftops!”

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