Anyone help identify an edition of the Railway Magazine?

[SteveM70]

So. I vividly recall getting a copy of the Railway Magazine for Christmas, roundabout 1980, that had an article in it about a trip up the Far North line which - I think - had the author riding in the cab. From very vague memory it was a morning service from Inverness, with newspapers / parcels on it as well as passengers.

Because it was Xmas I assume it was a December or January edition

Anyway, I'd dearly love to read that article again, as I remember being mesmerised by it, having not then been to Scotland and it all felt very other-worldish to me.

Can anyone help identify which edition it is I need to find?

Thanks

 

[hexagon789]

After searching the Railway Magazine archive -

There is Ringing the Highland Changes in the April 1978 issue, in which Keith Farr revisits the Highlands after some years. He travels to Golspie on the 1110 'Wick Mail'. Though he also travels up on the Royal Highlander and references a trip south over the Highland Main Line as well, so the article is not specifically just on the Far North. He does not take a cab ride at any point that I could see from a quick scan of the article but he does calculate some of the running speeds.

Otherwise various keyword searches only produced a range of Practice and Performance articles with timings logs taken on various portions of the Far North.

I tried 'Far North', 'Inverness', 'Thurso', 'Wick', 'Mail' and 'Newspaper(s)' as search terms.

 

[gazthomas]

The Railway Magazine has their full archive available to subscribers:

The Railway Magazine Archive | The Railway Magazine

Access to The Railway Magazine digital archive online, on your computer, tablet, and smartphone. The archive is now complete - with 120 years of back issues ...

www.railwaymagazine.co.uk

 

[SteveM70]

Thanks for your help with this. I found the January 1981 edition had an article about a cab ride on a freight train from Cadder yard to Oban, so it may have been that and my memory went awry over the years. Anyhow, I’ve bought a copy off eBay so we’ll see if it jogs my memory