Taynuilt railway station

Taynuilt railway station is a railway station serving the village of Taynuilt in western Scotland. This station is on the Oban branch of the West Highland Line, originally part of the Callander and Oban Railway.

History

File:Taynuilt station - the building on the left was destroyed by fire after 1994.jpg

Class 27 in 1979 - the building on the left was destroyed by fire after 1994

Taynuilt station opened on 1 July 1880, when the Callander and Oban Railway was extended from Dalmally to Oban.

The station was laid out with two platforms, one on either side of a crossing loop. There are two sidings on the south side of the station.

On 11 January 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.

Signalling

From the time of its opening in 1880, the single line between Dalmally and Oban was worked by the electric token system, this being the first ever application of that system in everyday service.

Taynuilt signal box, which replaced the original box on 24 March 1921, was located at the west end of the station, on the south side of the line. It had 16 levers.

Taynuilt lost all its semaphore signals on 16 February 1986, in preparation for Radio Electronic Token Block (RETB) signalling. RETB was commissioned between Crianlarich and Taynuilt on 27 March 1988. Taynuilt signal box did not close until 24 April of that year, when the RETB spread west to Oban. The redundant signal box was later relocated to the opposite end of the station, where it is currently in a semi-derelict state.

The Train Protection & Warning System was installed in 2003.

References

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Falls of Cruachan		Abellio ScotRail West Highland Line		Connel Ferry
	Historical railways
Falls of Cruachan Line and Station open		Callander and Oban Railway Operated by Caledonian Railway		Ach-na-Cloich Line Open; Station closed