I've been doing some research recently into proposals for Scottish narrow gauge lines in some of my books. In 1896 the Light Railway Act was passed, and two years later there were 35 proposals in one year for light railways in Scotland, some brand new schemes, and some revivals of old ideas. There are some quite interesting proposals, one of which particularly captivated me.
The Hebridean Light Railway Proposal was to build lines on the Isle of Skye and The Isle of Lewis that would total a running distance of 97 miles. The main route on Skye was the one that interested me, this could potentially make the ideal setting for Port na Cailliche. The route proposed ran from North to South along the island with branches to Dunvegan and Uig. Other stations on the route mentioned are Sligachan, Broadford and Isleornsay. The intention was to take all traffic from Isleornsay to Mallaig where it could meet up with the North British Railway's West Highland Line. Therfore the line would likely have been operated by the NBR.
For whatever reason this proposal did not materialise. In 1898 the Highland Railway were invited to build a line on Skye from Portree to Dunvegan with a branch to Uig, again this did not materialise.
In 1980 'railways for the islands' were considered by a government comission, but again did not prove fruitful. There was strong opposition to any building of a line from the Highland Railway, this was likely to be because it would have been an NBR funded/operated scheme.
One line did materialise on Skye in 1904, a 3' gauge line from a marble quarry in Torrin to Broadford pier. It employed a Kerr Stuart Skylark (from 1910 onwards) and operated until closure in 1939.
From reading this it occurred to me that Port na Cailliche could be located on the Isle of Skye, and could have been a new port (like Mallaig) built to improve access to fisheries and ferry navigation routes. A likely location would be on the South Western corner of the island due to the shorter route to Mallaig by sea. Likely traffic could have been passengers to and from the Islands to meet ferries, local passengers, rock, fish, inter-island goods etc.
I decided to keep the location fairly imaginative and just leave it as 'somewhere in the Lochaber region', thus enabling me a bit more freedom with my plans, and with the history.
One thing that the reading did make me realise though, was that it would be different to set the line pre World War 1 in a period when it was operating at it's heyday rather than in the 1930s. Many narrow gauge lines would have been in decline by the 30s, so a more interesting range of operations could probably be modelled if set pre-WW1. Anothe thing that occured, was the possible ownership/endorsement by the NBR, so I will be experimenting with NBR livery on a loco kit and some stock that I am working on at present to see how it turns out.
Dunbracken is to be exhibited at ExpoNG in October, realistically before this I don't think i'll have time to get anything done on PnC, but after that it will be full steam ahead for the winter to make a start on the baseboards!
