Taynuilt railway station

Taynuilt Scottish Gaelic: Taigh an Uillt[1]
Location	Taynuilt, Argyll and Bute Scotland
Coordinates	56°25′51″N 5°14′22″W / 56.4309°N 5.2394°W / 56.4309; -5.2394Coordinates: 56°25′51″N 5°14′22″W / 56.4309°N 5.2394°W / 56.4309; -5.2394
Grid reference	NN003312
Managed by	Abellio ScotRail
Platforms	2
Other information
Station code	TAY
History
Original company	Callander and Oban Railway
Pre-grouping	Callander and Oban Railway operated by Caledonian Railway
Key dates
1 July 1880	Opened
Passengers
2016/17	21,916
2017/18	24,788
2018/19	22,472
2019/20	18,416
2020/21	35,054
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Taynuilt railway station is a railway station serving the village of Taynuilt in western Scotland. This station is on the Oban branch of the West Highland Line, originally part of the Callander and Oban Railway.

History[]

Class 27 in 1979 - the building on the left was destroyed by fire after 1994

Taynuilt station opened on 1 July 1880, when the Callander and Oban Railway was extended from Dalmally to Oban.

The station was laid out with two platforms, one on either side of a crossing loop. There are two sidings on the south side of the station.

On 11 January 1987, the crossing loop was altered to right-hand running. The original Down platform has thus become the Up platform, and vice versa. The change was made in order to simplify shunting at this station, by removing the need to hand-pump the train-operated loop points to access the sidings.

Signalling[]

From the time of its opening in 1880, the single line between Dalmally and Oban was worked by the electric token system, this being the first ever application of that system in everyday service.

Taynuilt signal box, which replaced the original box on 24 March 1921, was located at the west end of the station, on the south side of the line. It had 16 levers.

Taynuilt lost all its semaphore signals on 16 February 1986, in preparation for Radio Electronic Token Block (RETB) signalling. RETB was commissioned between Crianlarich and Taynuilt on 27 March 1988. Taynuilt signal box did not close until 24 April of that year, when the RETB spread west to Oban. The redundant signal box was later relocated to the opposite end of the station, where it is currently in a semi-derelict state.

The Train Protection & Warning System was installed in 2003.

Services[]

There are 7 departures in each direction Mondays to Saturdays (6 on Saturdays), eastbound to Glasgow Queen Street and westbound to Oban. On weekdays only, an additional service in each direction between Dalmally and Oban calls here in the late afternoon. On Sundays, there are 3 departures each way throughout the year, plus a fourth in the summer from late June–August runs to Edinburgh Waverley. The increase in station usage recorded in the 2020/21 Office of Rail and Road statistics, at a time when passenger numbers across the UK fell drastically in the Covid-19 pandemic, was attributed to the introduction of school services on the Oban line.

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Falls of Cruachan or Loch Awe		Abellio ScotRail West Highland Line		Connel Ferry
	Historical railways
Falls of Cruachan Line and station open		Callander and Oban Railway Operated by Caledonian Railway		Ach-na-Cloich Line open; station closed

Notes[]

References[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Taynuilt railway station.

• Brailsford, Martyn, ed. (December 2017) [1987]. Railway Track Diagrams 1: Scotland & Isle of Man (6th ed.). Frome: Trackmaps. ISBN 978-0-9549866-9-8.
• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199.
• Fryer, Charles (1989). The Callander and Oban Railway. Oxford: Oakwood Press. ISBN 0-8536-1377-X. OCLC 21870958.
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-086-0. OCLC 22311137.