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. You will see 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. A place where none of the cartographer’s ink was spent.

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, 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 two- to three-day expedition through the wild heart of the Highlands. A journey that must partly be done on two rails, partly on two feet.