Remembering McAlpine's Fusiliers

THE Irish navvies who blasted, picked, shovelled and drilled their way through the hard rock of the Scottish Highlands to bring the railway from Fort William to Mallaig in 1907, are being recalled in a series of events to mark the anniversary of the opening of the railway this summer.

Dubbed ‘The Road to the Isles,’ the line threads its way through spectacular scenery, 11 tunnels and 100 cuttings hewn out of solid rock by the contractor’s men, made famous in the song McAlpine’s Fusiliers. They also built six concrete viaducts, using a then revolutionary material in railway construction, and the most famous of all is Glenfinnan Viaduct of Harry Potter fame, crossed during the summer by the famous Jacobite steam train.

The line’s operators, ScotRail and Network Rail, have joined forces with Glenfinnian Railway Museum and the Friends of the West Highland Lines, to ensure that the efforts of the navvies are not forgotten. The line—which serves a Catholic and Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland—was one of the last to be built in Britain and railway jobs for navvies began to drop away in the years before World War I. During the contract, the Irish navvies lived in camps along the line as they had done on similar jobs since the start of the railway age.

Interestingly the very next job done by McAlpine’s was the construction of the Strabane & Letterkenny Railway, opened in 1909. Many of the navvies who worked on the Mallaig contract, and many of whom came from Donegal, transferred across to complete the last part of the Donegal narrow gauge system, which was also the last public railway built in Ireland. Many of the bridges on the Letterkenny line—still visible today—were also made of concrete, the trademark of McAlpine’s, leading to the firm’s founder becoming known as Concrete Bob.

John Barnes of Glenfinnan Railway Museum, which is housed in the station, said: “We want as many people as possible to visit us to learn of the history of this stunning railway.

“The men who built it faced many challenges to give us the scenic line we all love so much today and, if you can do it, take a trip on the Road to the Isles this summer. You won’t regret it and you will see, at first hand the work of McAlpine’s Fusiliers, the brave men who brought the railway to Glenfinnan and Mallaig.”

Details of special events are being posted on the Friends of the West Highland Lines website: www.westhighlandline.org.uk