Altnabreac rail station ‘notoriety’ could help market wider Caithness and Flow Country area to visitors, hope campaigners
“Sensational notoriety” swirling around a temporarily mothballed Caithness train station could help drive more passengers to explore the wider area when it does reopen, rail campaigners hope.
Friends of the Far North Line’s convener, Ian Budd, raised the marketing potential of coverage about Altnabreac station at the group’s recent AGM and in the latest edition of its members magazine Far North Express.
The station has been closed to passenger services since November last year following a dispute with neighbours over access to the platform.
A solution is understood to be in the works, with construction currently underway on new paths that will enable passengers to reach the track without passing through any disputed areas.
But a date for the reopening of the station has yet to be announced, even though there were earlier hopes it might reopen by September.
Meanwhile, whenever the reopening does occur, Mr Budd believes the publicity surrounding the station’s closure – which attracted headlines in major UK news outlets as well as closer to home – could have marketing potential, with the heightened public knowledge of the station’s existence offering ScotRail a chance to help boost passenger numbers and tourism to the wider area.
He said: “It is to be hoped that ScotRail turns the sensational notoriety the station has gained to its marketing advantage when it is reopened, and that its fame kindles increased awareness of the wonderful facility of there being a station in such a remote and otherwise inaccessible part of Scotland.”
His remarks came after the Flow Country, which Altnabreac sits within, was awarded Unesco World Heritage Status in recognition of its globally important blanket bog habitat – one of the largest contiguous such environments in Europe.
