IT WAS in the summer of 1974 that I discovered the appeal of exploring old railway stations and closed railway lines.
Perhaps it was a timely transition from teenage trainspotter to railway historian, but the trigger was a glorious summer holiday exploring the railways of the Lake District with schoolfriends.
Based in a small cottage beside the west coast main line near Shap, we roamed across Cumberland and Westmorland uncovering the route of the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway, visiting the picturesque Settle & Carlisle line and venturing east along the old North Eastern Railway route to Barnard Castle.
Though tracks had been lifted and some structures demolished, overgrown platforms and some station buildings remained years after closure, albeit frequently in poor condition.
Some detective work was needed to track down precise locations of forgotten stations, and more research was required to piece together the history of the line and find out when it actually closed to passengers and goods.
All of which helped to ignite a lifelong interest in the infrastructure of our railway system that existed prior to the notorious Beeching cuts of the 1960s, when thousands of miles of routes were closed. I even ended up writing a book chronicling the opening and closing of lines across the South-east of England.
Days after our glorious Lake District holiday, I joined my parents for their annual trip to visit family on the Moray Coast – a perfect opportunity to take a closer look at what remained of what was once one of the most scenic railways in the country.
The Great North of Scotland Railway network fanned out west and north from Aberdeen to Ballater on Deeside and across to Keith, Elgin and Boat of Garten, where it met its great rival, the Highland Railway.
A series of branches took travellers towards the coastal towns of Boddam, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Macduff and Lossiemouth – and a glorious loop ran from Cairnie Junction near Keith up to Portsoy and then along the cliffs towards Buckie and Elgin.
A tentative exploration in August 1974 took me along the short clifftop stretch either side of the village where my mother had been born and grew up: Findochty, or Finechty as the locals pronounce it.
The historic fishing village once had a bustling harbour supporting dozens of boats during the 18th and 19th centuries, and our family had strong trawler fishing connections, although these days leisure craft dominate the view of the church where my parents were married in 1954.
Throughout the village, traditional fishermen’s cottages cluster around the narrow streets, profiles low to resist the wind and with colourful stone facings around the windows and doors, a distinctive style characterised in other adjoining fishing villages along the coast.
On the other side of the village, the east beach where we played as children is as beautiful as ever, a wonderland of rockpools and soaring cliffs, caves and crashing waves on the edge of the eternally chilly North Sea.
From here you can see the cemetery on the cliffs where generations of the family are buried, as beautiful a location as any might wish for.
Back in the day, you could catch a plume of steam up there on the clifftop too. After my parents’ wedding, guests from down south were seen off at the station, a wooden building similar in style to many others along the coast.
But by the time of my visit in 1974, the station buildings had been demolished and only the single platform and loading bay remained, along with foundations of a signalbox. Just outside the station bridge no 930 still carried the A942 over the old trackbed.
The scene was little changed four years later in August 1978 when a fellow enthusiast, Alan Young, visited most of the old GNoSR stations as part of an ambitious resolve to visit all of the stations in Britain and Ireland.
Today, the view over the village from the cemetery remains as spectacular as ever but steam trains no longer pound along the cliffs towards Portknockie and Cullen as they once did.
The route closed completely on May 6 1968 along with 17 of the most remote and scenic stations in the country. But if Alan was not on hand to capture steam on the line in its heyday, he was able to provide pictures to help illustrate the memories I retained from walking the route as a teenager in the mid-1970s.
Inspired by that Lake District holiday in 1974, it wasn’t long before I was back on the overgrown platform at Findochty ready to find out more about the fate of the Moray Coast line – but that, as they say, is another story.
