Scotland 2022: All aboard!
For the Harry Potter fans out there, you may recognise some of the photos in the blog below. The 21 statement stone arches supporting a railway line, with a steam train moving steadily across - also known as the Hogwarts Express! For the benefit of other muggles out there (or just non-Potter fans), this is the Glenfinnan Viaduct, and on my travels to Scotland I was able to stop by and pay it a visit en-route to the Cairngorms national park.
Background & History
The Glenfinnan Viaduct is a railway viaduct on the West Highland Line in Glenfinnan, Inverness-shire, Scotland. It was built from 1897 to 1901, and is located at the top of Loch Shiel in the Highlands. It is composed of 21 concrete arches and has a height of 30m.
An Engineering Point of View
Coming from a Civil Engineering background, there's no way I could have visited the viaduct and not been intrigued by the engineering behind it! The viaduct was built by Robert McAlpine & Sons, and concrete was used mainly. The line officially opened on the 1st of April 1901, but it was actually complete by October 1898 at a cost of £18,904.
The concrete viaduct has 21 semi-circular spans of 15m, and is the longest concrete railway bridge in Scotland at 380m. It compromises of a single railway track along which the famous steam train runs along. The type of concrete that was used for this project was mass concrete - unlike reinforced concrete it contains no metal reinforcement, and was formed by pouring the concrete into moulds. This means that the viaduct is very strong in compression but weak in tension.
Visiting the Viaduct
There are various train operators that use the line on a daily basis, but the most famous one is The Jacobite, operated by West Coast Railways. The steam train is the main reason people come to the viaduct at specific times to watch it pass. The times that the train will cross can be found online as well as at the visitor information centre on site - we managed to catch the train going across at about 15:10. Note that a few minutes after the first train (which was coming from Fort William, a second train travelling towards Fort William will also pass, so hang around for a bit!). It was quite amazing to see how many people would turn up and climb the small hills to get the best view and photo - there was a buzz in the air before the train passed by. Then as The Jacobite emerged, it all fell silent and all you could here was the 'click' of people's cameras!
I would recommend that if you are interested in watching the train pass across the viaduct, get to the viewing spot with plenty of time to get the beast seats.
The Viaduct & Harry Potter
Being someone that's read all the books and watched the films of J.K.Rowling's bestseller, it was quite surreal to see 'The Hogwarts Express' in real life. The Glenfinnan Viaduct appeared in 4 of the Harry Potter films, and after some research apparently also appeared in the videogame Forza Horizon 4! You could tell that the Harry Potter element played a big part in the region's tourism - the tourist information centre has plenty of Harry Potter merchandise and memorabilia!
Glenfinnan Viaduct was a great place for a stopover on our journey from Skye to the Cairngorms. I hope you enjoyed this blog and thanks for reading!
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