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Book on failed plans for north-west rail link to be focus of Ullapool Book Festival

Author Andrew Drummond.
Author Andrew Drummond.

A proposed north-west railway that never got off the ground will be the focus of an online talk as part of the Ullapool Book Festival, organisers have said.

The Highland literature festival’s organisers sill meet with author Andrew Drummond for an “illustrated” virtual discussion on his new book ‘A Quite Impossible Proposal: How Not to Build a Railway’.

It tells the story of an attempt to improve transportation in the north-west Highlands in the 1890s, and the resulting government inquiries, set against the region’s economic and social problems.

Mr Drummond’s book claims that “despite rock solid arguments” to build the Ullapool rail link, the plans were ignored by the UK Government and big rail companies.

The Scottish Office also dismissed the project as “a quite impossible proposal” and in 1918 another attempt to build the railway was also thwarted.

The current West Coast rail line only reaches as far north as Mallaig, leaving hundreds of miles of Scotland’s north-west region without any major rail link.

The Ullapool Book Festival said Mr Drummond would discuss the frustrations of the people of the Highlands at the time “in the face of government incompetence, railway company obstructionism, local rivalries and the struggle against the historical injustice of land ownership”.