The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.
You bet. I was born in Inverness at a time when almost all roads West of the A82/A9 were narrow, twisty single-track roads, many built in the 18th-19th centuries. The overland routes to Skye and the outer isles started with the train to Kyle.
For Skye it would be either ferry and bus, or the daily (I think) macbraynes boat from mallaig which called at Kyle and Raasay on its way to Portree.
For the outer isles, it would be the daily Loch Seaforth to Stornoway. Most cargo came by a weekly boat from the Clyde, supplemented by the 'puffers'. Any cars were deck cargo.
Stations like Achnasheen were important hubs - at least two mailbuses met the train carrying passengers and mail to and from Gordon and Gareloch.
On the Far North line, Lairg was a major hub, with at least three mailbus routes. (It's still the locus for the largest one day sheep sale in Scotland, with the entire output of the NW being sold.) In the herring season, Wick would have generated special priority freight trains. And passengers accepted that, having reached Thurso they would have to transfer to a bus to reach the Orkney ferry at Scrabster.
Hardly anyone had a private car apart from the doctor and the landowners.
So everyone's journey was constructed around the train and ferry times. No Sunday travel, of course.
Now, of course, the general public will only use the train, or the bus, if it operates at times which suit them.
When RoRo ferries were eventually introduced, they used harbours which, except for Oban, have no rail link.
Almost all traffic to Orkney uses the shorter, cheaper, and more frequent service from Gills Bay
No major fishing port has rail access.
Clearly the southern end of the route has the potential to play a significant role in the economy of Inverness, but it is difficult to justify the resources required to sustain the far north. Given that there seems to be continuing use of the freight facilities at Georgemas, and given that most people either drive or get a lift to their station anyway, and that Georgemas is on the hourly bus between Wick and Thurso, my heretical suggestion is that the line should terminate at Georgemas. Georgemas Parkway!