A SPARSELY POPULATED AREA

 Beyond Girvan the railway enters a little known area of Scotland with very little in the way of towns or villages. This is the view from the northbound boat train, south of Girvan.

Barrhill station, photographed by Ben Brooksbank in 1974, is some distance from the village of the same name.

The signal box was tiny!

Glenwhilly signal box wasn't much bigger and controlled a station in the middle of nowhere.

Another view from the boat train, arriving at Glenwhilly, 1983.

The next station south was New Luce.

We now go right across country towards Newton Stewart and the Bruce Stone in Glen Trool.

Once on the Dumfries to Straraer line, Newton Stewart station.

Castle Douglas is our next place to visit. Dumfries & Galloway Council operated some of the buses here.

Sulwath Brewery still makes beer in Castle Douglas.

Just a short distance to the east was the G&SWR station at Dalbeattie.

An about turn brings us near to the coast at Kirkcudbright. Here's the harbour in the 1960s.

Now for a 1970 view in colour.

Harbour Square - a postcard scene, with a local bus.

Here is St Mary Street in Kirkcudbright in 1972.

Another cross country trek now, enabling us to reach the west coast near Portpatrick, where we find an important radio station overlooking the sea.

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Portpatrick itself has a small harbour (Photographer unknown, scanned from a slide in my cllection).

Just to the north are the ruins of Dunskey Castle.

Soon we arrive at Stranraer (Creative Commons License).

Western SMT once ran most of the buses here.

27017 shunts its train at Stranraer Harbour station.

Here's a general view of the terminus.

We now board the Stena Caledonia (Photo by John McKintyre - Creative Commons License).

The last we see of Scotland, for a while, is Corswall Lighthouse. We will be back....

....but the next post will see us in Northern Ireland.

Follow the route here.