Cairngorms mountain railway

[kidman123]

Is this railway up and running again or is it still out of action if so how long for

 

[scotrail158713]

As far as I know it’s still out of action. Just searching “Cairngorm mountain railway” into Google should bring up the relevant information.

 

[Craig2601]

Still no plan regarding its reopening as far as I know.

 

[haggishunter]

The Funicular will be closed for the coming 2019/20 snowsports season. At present a peer review of the engineering assessment is ongoing and the earliest any remedial work could begin is summer 2020 (combination of public procurement rules and the short building season due to severe winter conditions). HIE (Highlands and Islands Enterprise) state that information to date is that bringing the funicular back into service is technically achievable - however that could be anything up to dismantling the entire viaduct structure between the Base Station and the tunnel mouth and starting again!

The Funicular has proven to be dysfunctional in winter to say the least - the ski train that can't run in snow has long been a running joke, so fixing it at any cost to save face at HIE should not be on the agenda. That we are now 10months into the closure (it didn't run most of September before officially being closed in early October) with still no sight of the engineering assessments that were initially due in November 2018, far less a plan for the future, one has to suspect that the more HIE prevaricates the more severe the situation is. I'd be surprised if the Funicular operates before autumn 2021 for the 2021/22 ski season and I would not be surprised if it does not re-open.

Were it reopen in 2020 it looks more likely that it would be a temporary fix to buy time to put in new alternative uplift before either removal or a much more substantial overhaul of the Funicular. The problems on CairnGorm go a lot further than just the broken funicular, though the funicular will be the main focus here on a railway forum.

 

[Adlington]

Fresh doubt surrounds the future of a top Highland visitor attraction after Scotland’s public spending watchdog warned “tough decisions” on repairs to Cairngorm’s crisis-hit funicular are likely to be needed soon.

Auditor General Caroline Gardner’s warning came as she announced a new in-depth probe into Highlands and Islands Enterprise’s (HIE) handling of the mountain railway’s closure and other problems at Scotland’s second-largest winter sports resort.

Ms Gardner said that with the cost of repairing the funicular, owned by HIE, still unknown a year after it was taken out of service on safety grounds, questions remain over how it can be afforded.

She added that the impact of the repair costs on the “financial sustainability” of the north’s Scottish Government-funded development agency was also unclear.

The report on the Cairngorm funicular railway will not be produced until spring 2020.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/f...ces-tough-decisions-over-much-needed-repairs/

 

[Meole]

https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/balfour-beatty-to-reinstate-cairn-gorm-railway

Balfour Beatty has won a contract worth just over £20.5m for work at Cairn Gorm including the reinstatement of Scotland’s only funicular railway.
more than £16m of the work, which is funded by the Scottish government and Highlands & Islands Enterprise will be used to support reinstatement of the funicular railway and bring it back into service during winter 2021-22. The decision to reinstate the funicular was taken following a detailed options appraisal that also considered replacing it with alternative uplift infrastructure, or removing it entirely.

Initial work to strengthen the 2km structure, which has been out of action since 2018, is expected to start later this month

 

[Mac2812]

Utter disgrace. Should never have been permitted in the first place. It's a mountain, not a tourist attraction. Should've been pulled up and returned to nature.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Utter disgrace. Should never have been permitted in the first place. It's a mountain, not a tourist attraction. Should've been pulled up and returned to nature.

Do you also think the same of the Snowdon Mountain Railway?

That's two mountains in the whole of the UK with trains up the side. However many hundred or thousand without. Just pick a different one!

 

[Mac2812]

Do you also think the same of the Snowdon Mountain Railway?

That's two mountains in the whole of the UK with trains up the side. However many hundred or thousand without. Just pick a different one!

Snowdon is different for obvious reasons. That was built for quarrying.

Cairngorm was built solely to commercialise a mountain which thousands of walkers enjoy

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

There were mines elsewhere on the Snowdon massif, but did the railway have anything to do with them?
..
There is a lot to be said for the honeypot principle, concentrating visitors in a couple of small areas, that happens on Bheinn Nibheis too, so that vast upland areas of Wales and Scotland areas relatively empty
There are a lot of access restrictions applying to the Cairn Gorm railway
The gauge is two metres!

 

[py_megapixel]

Snowdon is different for obvious reasons. That was built for quarrying.

Cairngorm was built solely to commercialise a mountain which thousands of walkers enjoy

Have you ever been to the top of Snowdon?
The railway may have been built for quarrying once (though I don't think that is actually the case), but it is now very much a tourist attraction. And the restaurant complex on top is pretty obnoxious, and that couldn't exist without the railway.

But, as a mountain walker myself, do I complain? No. Because apart from the novelty of being the tallest in Wales, and taller than anything in England, Snowdon is nothing special at all compared to the dozens of other mountains in Snowdonia, all of which are untouched.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Snowdon is different for obvious reasons. That was built for quarrying.

It wasn't, it was built for tourists. Or at least not that I can tell from some Googling. I think you're confusing it with the likes of the Ffestiniog (the vast majority of the non-mountain Welsh narrow gauge lines were built for slate quarry traffic).

I don't get why we have this thing about every mountain being undeveloped in the UK. In Italy there's a rifugio (a sort of hotel) on top of loads of them!

There are apparently (according to Wiki) 2,755 mountains in the British Isles, just pick a different one.

Talking of Cairn Gorm (which from the map doesn't even look particularly exciting to walk up), it's also littered with ski lifts anyway.

 

[SargeNpton]

The Snowdon Mountain Railway was built specifically for tourism. It had no link to any quarries.

 

[kylemore]

I would love if there had been more of them like in Switzerland. Ben Lomond would have been a good one, from Rowardennan or Inversnaid connecting with paddle steamers just like Lake Lucerne. What a superb tourist asset that would be now! The Swiss and indeed all the alpine continentals seem to manage to please both factions why can't we?

That said the Cairngorm railway is particularly ugly due to the bare nature of the mountain - perhaps we need a vast tree planting campaign?

 

[SargeNpton]

I would love if there had been more of them like in Switzerland. Ben Lomond would have been a good one, from Rowardennan or Inversnaid connecting with paddle steamers just like Lake Lucerne. What a superb tourist asset that would be now! The Swiss and indeed all the alpine continentals seem to manage to please both factions why can't we?

That said the Cairngorm railway is particularly ugly due to the bare nature of the mountain - perhaps we need a vast tree planting campaign?

Um, the bare nature of the mountain is why it's used as a winter sports area. Plant trees and you take that away.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

The Cairn Gorm railway was closed, in part at least for economic reasons, so one doubts there would be much call for other mountain railways

I like fell walking, I like cycling more. Perhaps cycleable routes could be made on selected Bheinns

 

[Bald Rick]

I like fell walking, I like cycling more. Perhaps cycleable routes could be made on selected Bheinns

There’s plenty!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I would love if there had been more of them like in Switzerland. Ben Lomond would have been a good one, from Rowardennan or Inversnaid connecting with paddle steamers just like Lake Lucerne. What a superb tourist asset that would be now! The Swiss and indeed all the alpine continentals seem to manage to please both factions why can't we?

The Alps are full of mountain transport facilities, accessing high level hiking routes via various refuges and mountain restaurants.
On some mountains there are scientific observatories which need to be serviced somehow anyway, with the transport helping pay the bills with tourism.
Plotting circular trips with a good hike in the middle is one of the pleasures of the Alps.
Mostly the transport options add to the vista and character of the area and get people into the high mountain environment.
So it can be done sympathetically with the mountain-scape.
It's donkey's years since I went up Cairn Gorm (on the old chair lift in the "summer"), but it was the only way to admire the whole range and the vastness of the upland area.

 

[kylemore]

Um, the bare nature of the mountain is why it's used as a winter sports area. Plant trees and you take that away.

Not a big ski expert however I seem to recall from distant memories of "Ski Sunday" that trees and skiing are not entirely incompatible!

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Not a big ski expert however I seem to recall from distant memories of "Ski Sunday" that trees and skiing are not entirely incompatible!

Even the slalom tends to avoid trees, having fake obstacles in the form of coloured posts. I suppose it depends on your view of what makes 'exciting' TV viewing. Just like Formula One. A procession of cars going 'whine' or the occasional prang!

As for the railway thing, given the lack of snow nowadays, relying on winter sports must be a seriously flawed business case.

As for Swiss mountains, yes many of them do seem to have monstrous carbuncles on them, often at the very summit. Many episodes of Swiss Railway Journeys show funiculars, cable-cars or ski-lifts heading to the heights. It wouldn't encourage me to visit.

 

[HSTEd]

As for the railway thing, given the lack of snow nowadays, relying on winter sports must be a seriously flawed business case.

WIth enough snowcannon it still gets cold enough.

It's also one of my semi serious climate mitigation proposals.
Use off peak nuclear power to run huge batteries of snowcannon at low demand times during the winter, build up a snowpack that will reflect sunlight. (even in winter if the snow lasts a few days it pays back the heat released from the reactor's condenser)

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Semiserious, +1
Excess power could be used/stored in other ways

In many recent summers, patches of snow have lasted through the summer on a few peaks in Scotland, some dedicated people monitored them. A good way to discover quite 'remote' corners

 

[Bald Rick]

Semiserious, +1
Excess power could be used/stored in other ways

In many recent summers, patches of snow have lasted through the summer on a few peaks in Scotland, some dedicated people monitored them. A good way to discover quite 'remote' corners

There’s ‘perma snow’ in some places. There was a decent sized patch on the north side of some Cairngorms when I was up there last month - that had clearly been there since winter.

 

[Mojo]

As for the railway thing, given the lack of snow nowadays, relying on winter sports must be a seriously flawed business case.

I went to a winter sports resort in British Columbia in June a few years ago, and in the summer months many of the ski runs are used for people to ride bikes down. People can load their bikes onto the ski lift on the way up.

 

[Bald Rick]

I went to a winter sports resort in British Columbia in June a few years ago, and in the summer months many of the ski runs are used for people to ride bikes down. People can load their bikes onto the ski lift on the way up.

Same all over the world, including Scotland. There are several mountain bike runs from the ski centre at Aonach Mor for example (near Fort William). Not sure whether the same applies at Cairn Gorm, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Same all over the world, including Scotland. There are several mountain bike runs from the ski centre at Aonach Mor for example (near Fort William). Not sure whether the same applies at Cairn Gorm, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Cairngorm has special status to protect the rare plants - hence the justification for the funicular in the first place to keep people off the ground. OK in winter when covered in snow and for a limited number of footpaths, otherwise they want people to keep off. Construction materials were dropped by helicopter when building the funicular to avoid the need for tracks for heavy construction vehicles.

 

[Bald Rick]

Cairngorm has special status to protect the rare plants - hence the justification for the funicular in the first place to keep people off the ground. OK in winter when covered in snow and for a limited number of footpaths, otherwise they want people to keep off. Construction materials were dropped by helicopter when building the funicular to avoid the need for tracks for heavy construction vehicles.

There’s a decent track - easily do-able in a 4x4 - that runs mostly parallel up to the top of the funicular.

 

[HSTEd]

Semiserious, +1
Excess power could be used/stored in other ways

In many recent summers, patches of snow have lasted through the summer on a few peaks in Scotland, some dedicated people monitored them. A good way to discover quite 'remote' corners

The semi serious benefits were, increased albedo leading to reduced effective insolation, the creation of a winter sports industry from reliable snow, and potentially creating a Glacier over decades!

 

[meepmeep]

I've been on this and I loved it. Allows people who may not be able to walk up to get close to the amazing views and nature

 

[JohnMcL7]

Same all over the world, including Scotland. There are several mountain bike runs from the ski centre at Aonach Mor for example (near Fort William). Not sure whether the same applies at Cairn Gorm, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Last time I checked the only way you could do it was through a guided ride and you weren't allowed to take your own bike instead you had to use one of their hire bikes which weren't suitable for that type of ride. They had a demo day a while back where you could choose a bike, take it up the railway and ride back down which was pretty good and they said they wanted to encourage people to come there for mountain biking but when I found I couldn't take my own bike up I didn't bother.

Nevis Range is a great spot for a variety of mountain biking and on the world map for downhill mountain biking.

The current state of the funicular is tragic and the outlook isn't looking optimistic.