Between the Lines

Take the sleeper train to the Scottish Highlands to strike out on an adventure through some of the wildest, most remote terrain in Europe.

- Oliver Smith

Look at a map of the British railway network and you'll see that, for the most part, it's a tangle of mainlines and branchlines: a mesh stitched in a way to serve most corners of the island. Direct your gaze north and you see the Scottish Highlands is an exception. It's served by only a few lonely lines, trailing away from the rest of the network like loose threads from a ball of wool. Two of these threads the West Highland Line and the Highland Main Line -wander in parallel north, come tantalisingly close to knotting together, then unspool in opposite directions. Between them is a blank expanse where no rails pass.

I had long seen this part of the map -the space between the lines and regarded it as something rather like a gulf to be bridged. But in the 22-mile divide between Corrour station on the West Highland Line and Dalwhinnie station on the Highland Main Line, there is no public transport and no public roads. Nor are there marked footpaths that fully connect the two stations. Rather, there lies some of the roughest, most remote terrain in Western Europe, a crossing obstructed by hulking mountains and passes of famous treachery. To make the crossing between those lines entails a twoto three-day expedition through the wild heart of the Highlands. A journey that must partly be done on two rails, partly on two feet.

We were a team of two: my friend AI and me. We first planned to make the crossing in early autumn, when leaves were reddening and stags rutting. Delays saw the trip pushed into November, when deer herds descended from the mountains and the first frosts snuck into the glens. By the time our expedition set out, winter was making an unscheduled early arrival.

Northbound through the night