Ride the Jacobite steam train (Harry Potter train) - May 11

Great sleep last night. You know your Airbnb is going to be lovely when your toilet paper looks like this:

And your loungeroom and view looks like this:

Another lovely day today of 21. Beautiful morning as we headed out at 9.25am to pick up Jenny before a short drive to the train station to catch our 10.15am Jacobite steam train. We have gone all out and booked;

• first class seats (which includes tea/coffee)
• a limited edition souvenir guide and
• high tea served on the return trip.

Funnily enough, because the weather is quite warm, the Scottish National Railway have decided it's too dangerous to use steam, so our engine is diesel 🚄- no plumes of smoke for us, but I'm happy with our sunny day.

The Jacobite travels from Fort William (where we are staying) to Mallaig on the West Highland line. It's an 84 mile round trip which;

• takes us past the highest mountain in Britain, Ben Nevis
• provides a schedule stop at the village of Glenfinnan - just after the Glenfinnan Viaduct, a great example of Victorian workmanship completed in 1898. It has 21-arches and is the bridge photos in yesterdays post!!
• visits Britain's most westerly mainland railway station, Arisaig
• passes close by the deepest freshwater river in Scotland, River Morar and
• arrives next to the deepest seawater loch in Europe, Loch Nevis (at Mallaig station).

Mallaig was founded during the 1840s when the owner of the North Morar Estate, Lord Lovat, divided up the farm on the coast into a series of parcels of land and encouraged his tenants living around Loch Morar and Loch Nevis to resettle there.

Mallaig's fortunes changed with the extension of the West Highland Line from Fort William. The line opened in 1901 and the transformation of Mallaig was immediate and lasting. With increased fishing came a new fishing harbour and the newly built steamer pier which coincided with the arrival of the railway, became the obvious place to board steamers bound for Skye and the Hebrides. After the boom and bust of the 60's and 70's, tourism was becoming more important. 

In 1984 the Jacobite Steam Train started, a spectacular success that continues today. Here's shots of our cabin and the train:

The sunshine was even better when we arrived at Malliag (about 2hrs later) for our 90 min stopover. Jenny wanted to visit the Heritage Centre to do some ancestry checking, so Sue and I headed off to buy lunch and this was our view when eating our sandwiches - look at that blue water and sky:

We wandered around and checked out the town, even visited 'Haggard Alley' a Harry Potter Theme shop - which was interesting. Before we knew it, time to return to the train for our 2.10pm departure time. We ran into Jen standing out the front, and hopped into a different carriage for our return trip. Given we were having high tea, we now had a 'lamp' added to our table. This is the what we received for high tea - it contained 3x sandwiches, chutney & mustard, 1x scone with jam & clotted cream & 3x slices as well as a tea cake (which is a bigger version of our chocolate royals):

Each of us could only fit in the scone, jam and cream - as it was huge!! We bought the rest back to eat for dinner!!

Here's the fancy lamp and Jen:

Here's Jen and I tucking in to our scone 🍰

These are my favourite photos from the train on our return trip:

We sat opposite 2x lovely Americans from California who we chatted with most of the way. The only issue we had during our trip was the level of heat in our carriage. As we neared the end of our journey, the Train Manager explained the carriages do have air conditioning, however because they had to change the engine, the diesel version didn't have the ability to run the aircon - so it did get very warm (we couldn't open the windows in our carriage - clearly don't trust 1st class passengers) 😏.

Thought I'd finish this post with the trains link to Harry, Ron and Hermione.

The Hogwarts Express train that carried the kids to school each year was filmed along the Fort William to Mallaig Jacobite route. The movies show the train chugging across the Glenfinnan Viaduct, where in the Goblet of Fire, the Dementors stall the train and torture Harry. A train bridge opposite Loch Shiel near Fort William also popped up in the Chamber of Secrets and was used again when the Dementors boarded the train in the Prisoner of Azkaban. Dumbledores grave is also on one of Lochs seen from the train (sorry about the reflection on the left, darn that lovely sun):

The Hogwarts Express, or 5972 Olton Hall as it is formally known is owned by West Coast Railways and was built in April 1937 at Swindon railway works for the Great Western Railway. She was withdrawn from service in the 1950's and retired in Dec 1963. She was one of 213 trains rescued for the developing railway preservation movement. Between 1964 and 1981, Olton Hall lay dormant, rusting and rotting away surrounded by hundreds of other steam locomotives destined to be broken up.

Her transformation to her former glory and to one of the stars of the Harry Potter Franchise is remarkable and would not have been possible were it not for the passion of train restoration enthusiasts and companies such as West Coast Railways.

Fantastic day that ended with our sandwiches and cakes for dinner.

Tomorrow we are off to the Isle of Skye and staying in a place called Saasaig.

Happy days 💃💖