02 · Ten hours · from Fort William or Fort Augustus · June to late October
Chasing the Jacobite
5 photographs · Silent Glen
In short
The train everyone photographs, from the places the photographs are taken. A day that moves: one sighting at Glenfinnan promised, and two or three if you are quick back to the car.
How the day runs
Ten hours, five stops, and none of it fixed.
Open a stop for the detail, or show it on the map. The ones marked optional are offered on the day rather than fixed into it — take them or leave them.
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Start You’ll be collected
Early from Fort William or Fort Augustus, and early enough to be up the hillside before the good ground goes.
- 01
The Glenfinnan viaduct 1 h 30
On the hillside a long time before it comes, because the spot fills and the shot is only worth having from there.
Details CloseTwenty-one arches on a curve, and a steam train crossing them. We walk up early and wait, because the good ground goes to whoever got there first and there is no talking your way onto it afterwards. The train is timetabled, so we know when it is due; what we cannot promise is that it is running to time, and on a bad day it is twenty minutes late and nobody minds.
- 02
Glenfinnan monument 45 min
The better half of the stop, and the half most people skip.
Details CloseEveryone comes for the viaduct and leaves without walking the two hundred yards to the monument, which stands at the head of Loch Shiel where the standard was raised in 1745. The loch runs seventeen miles south-west from it between the hills. It is the better view and it is almost always emptier.
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The second sighting Optional 45 min
Only if we are away from Glenfinnan quickly, and only if you want it.
Details CloseThe train stops at Glenfinnan and we do not, which is the whole trick: while it is sitting at the platform we are on the road west, and there is time to be standing at Loch nan Uamh before it comes past. Whether we make it depends on how fast you are back to the car and whether the train is on time. We will tell you at Glenfinnan which it is going to be rather than promising it in advance.
- 03
Arisaig 45 min
White shell sand, and Eigg and Rum sitting on the horizon.
- 04
Camusdarach 1 h
A path over the dunes and no sign telling you what it is.
Details CloseThe silver sands, and the reason this coast is worth an afternoon rather than a photograph. Shell sand, machair behind it, and the Small Isles across the water. There is no car park worth the name and no sign, which is why it is usually empty at four in the afternoon in August.
- 05
Mallaig 1 h 30
Where the road ends. Langoustines on the harbour if the boats have been out.
Details CloseA working fishing port that happens to be where the road west finally stops. The train terminates here too, so if the timing has gone well you can watch it come in. Lunch is on the harbour, and the langoustines depend entirely on whether the boats went out that morning.
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Pass by Loch Eilt
On the way home, and the light is usually better on it by then.
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End Back at your door
Back east along Loch Eilt, with the light where you want it.
Durations rather than times, on purpose. The order moves, stops get longer or get dropped, and the whole thing bends around the weather and around you — Dan will tell you on the morning what the day actually wants to be.
Map and imagery by Google, which sets its own cookies.
The next five days at Loch nan Uamh
Met Office ·
Forecasts this far out are a shape rather than a promise, which is the whole reason the day is not fixed until the morning.
Highlights
- The Glenfinnan viaduct from the hillside, which is where the photograph everyone knows is taken from
- A second and sometimes a third sighting, because the train stops and we do not
- Loch Shiel from the monument, which most people leave without seeing
- The silver sands at Camusdarach, usually empty at four in the afternoon
- Langoustines on the harbour at Mallaig, where the road west runs out
What’s included
In the price
- Collection from your door in Fort William or Fort Augustus, and back there at the end
- The car to yourselves for the whole day — one party a day, nobody else aboard
- Working the day around the timetable, which is the part that is hard to do yourself
- All mileage and charging
- Free cancellation up to 48 hours before, for a full refund
Not included
- A seat on the train. This day is about watching it rather than riding it — and the tickets are return only, with no one-way, and the peak dates go within about a week of booking opening.
- Lunch on the harbour at Mallaig, and anything bought at a shop or café on the way.
- Entry to the National Trust visitor centre at Glenfinnan. Say when you enquire and we will price the day with it or without.
The day
The train everyone wants a photograph of
Around six hundred thousand people a year come to Glenfinnan, and most of them come for ninety seconds of steam crossing twenty-one arches. It is the most photographed piece of railway in Britain and it deserves to be.
The awkward part is the ticket. Seats are sold return only, with no one-way option, the peak dates go within about a week of booking opening, and riding it puts you in a seat for five and a half hours of a day you came to Scotland to spend outdoors.
So we do not sell you a seat
We sell you the places the photographs are taken from.
You get one sighting, promised: the viaduct, from the hillside above it, having walked up early enough to stand where the shot actually is. That is the picture everyone knows, and almost nobody riding the train gets it, because you cannot photograph a viaduct from a carriage on top of it.
Chasing it, if you want to
Here is the trick the day is built on. The train stops at Glenfinnan. We do not.
While it is sitting at the platform we are already on the road west, and if you are quick back to the car there is time to be standing at Loch nan Uamh when it comes past. Sometimes there is time for Arisaig after that. Three sightings in a morning is possible.
One is promised. Whether you get the others depends on how fast you move and whether the train is running to time, and we would rather tell you that now than have you find out at half past eleven. If it is not going to work we say so at Glenfinnan and we take the coast slowly instead, which is not a consolation prize — it is the better half of the day.
Why nobody else does this
It is timing and road knowledge and nothing else. A coach cannot make the moves. Somebody in a hire car does not know which layby to stand in, or that the good ground at Glenfinnan is gone by half nine, or how long it takes to get from the viaduct to the coast on a single-track road in August.
June to late October, and it moves
The Jacobite does not run in winter, so neither does this day.
It is also the faster of the two days we run on this road, and that is deliberate. The morning belongs to the train: up the hillside early, back to the car smartly, and away again while it is still sitting at the platform. Nothing about it is a march, but it is a day with a clock in it.
If that sounds like work rather than a holiday — or if you are here in February — take the Road to the Isles instead. Same coast, same beaches, all year round, and nothing whatever to catch.
What to bring
A camera, and a long lens if you own one. The viaduct shot is taken from a distance and a phone will not reach it, though it will do a perfectly good job of the glen around it.
Layers, and something you do not mind wet sand in for Camusdarach.
Book now
Tell us the week. We’ll tell you the weather.
Every day is quoted individually — party size, pick-up point and how far you want to go. Expect a reply from Dan within a working day, and a written itinerary before you pay anything.
Thank you. Dan will reply within a working day.
silentglentours@gmail.comThe other days
If this one is not quite it.
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