CairnGorm Mountain Railway borked

The condition of the UK’s highest railway was “disappointing for its age”, according to a newly-released engineers report.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-50508800

Interesting choice of language.

is the winterhighland forum down???

Is there somewhere you can voice your disapproval of the potential repair of the railway?
As it looks like this is the route they are wanting to take, from reading the BBC link!

Meanwhile, it has also announced it was making preparations for public consultation on a new masterplan for the Cairngorm Mountain resort.

Which, presumably, will involve tearing up many of the original planning conditions placed on it to protect the environment around the site.

Which, presumably, will involve tearing up many of the original planning conditions placed on it to protect the environment around the site.

One can only hope.

Is there somewhere you can voice your disapproval of the potential repair of the railway?

As it looks like this is the route they are wanting to take, from reading the BBC link

Sure. As a resident of the area you can join the Aviemore and Glenmore Community Trust who will represent the views of the community. The AGM is on Thursday, so maybe not too late to get onto the committee.

!

Sorry scotroutes, based in Bathgate!

To me this is a really difficult conundrum and the interests of locals and of those who want to protect this area clash badly

I have no doubt that if there was to be a new ski resort in scotland and cairngorm had not been previously developed it would not be allowed to be developed now – but we are where we are. I would much rather the funicular had never been built or that the alternative plan had been built ( remove the access road, funicular goes from lower and stops lower)

The Cairngorm ski resort brings a lot of money to the area – not just directly but indirectly.

So – what do we do now? Try to lesson the environmental impact of the ski area whilst trying to balance its need to stay open for the local economy? With all that in mind I will see what the new plan is. see how well it balances the conflicting interests and above all see if the future for Cairngorm is sustainable in all its meanings.

Edit – the highlands needs employment and a use for the land otherwise it just becomes a park for tourists.

Is there somewhere you can voice your disapproval of the potential repair of the railway?

It is owned by HIE, so up to the Scottish government to decide whether to pay for it. Let your local MSPs know what you think.

Giant Scum – on what basis do you object?

Edit – the highlands needs employment and a use for the land otherwise it just becomes a park for tourists.

You say that like those things are mutually exclusive.

They can be and often are. Look at the protests to any development. This is one example of this. From an ecological point of view the funicular is a “wrong” as is the whole ski area on Cairngorm. Its debate thats been going on for decades. But close the ski resort and damage Aviemore leading to a loss of jobs in an area that needs those jobs.

Cairngorm is a unique little bit of ecosystem. The ski area and the funicular damage this.

Which has a higher priority? the fragile and internationally important ecosystem or the needs of the local community?

I think there has to be found some solution that can balance the two. I don’t agree with Scotroutes about the planning restrictions needing to go but I do accept its a valid argument and that the arbitrary and sometimes stupid nature of them leads to ridiculous situations. This is why I would have prefered the funicular to not go as high on the mountain. But that ship has sailed – we are where we are.

The ski area must remain now – there is no way back much as I and others might wish it. Indeed there is a strong argument for using the funicular to increase and improve access. the organisers of the ski area must look at the money raised in summer from the Fort William gondola from mountainbikers and wish that were them.

So to protect the plateau is a “code of conduct” and education the key? allow more development in the lower slopes and in some areas and trade that off against increased protection for other areas?

Lets just hope that out of all this comes a sustainable and sensible solution that everyone can be equally happy or unhappy with

Cairngorm is a unique little bit of ecosystem. The ski area and the funicular damage this.

AFAIK there is nothing unique about Coire Cas. If you want, you can go back over this thread and dig out the figures regarding just how much of the CNP and what %age of the Cairngorms Massif Coire Cas makes up.

Folk go all misty eyed about the heyday of Scottish skiing and how it’ll never return to the pre-Freddy Laker days. We now know how well that’s working out for the environment.

Its a part of a fragile and unique ecosystem scotroutes. A significant part? Thats the area for debate. To some its only a small bit and not the most important bit so to develop it further is of little loss. To others its the thin end of the wedge to develop it further and any loss of this habitat is something to be fought

I’ll sit in the middle and hope for a pragmatic and reasonable solution that balances the various differing attitudes

I do agree with you that there is a stench of Nimbyism about this debate. There is no pint in harking back to what it was like predevelopment of the ski area – we are starting from now.

Personally? Rebuild the funicular and and use measures to mitigate risks to the habitat. Lets get a plan that can be used for a long time and that is a compromise everyone could live with. Find a way to use it in summer for mountainbiking for the income that would bring without causing more damage to the ecosystem or that has a tradeoff in other ways

Scotroutes – the ecosytem I am referring to is only a small part of the park – its the high areas with the arctic / alpine moorland habitat on which the ski area does intrude a little. Home to endangered plant and animal species

When does the new red route from Summit to Loch go in?

I’m digging it on Sunday

tj I can only see it costing a lot more than the quoted £10m to fix it!
Only for it to fail again 5 years down the line.
Get rid of it and invest in an alternative uplift, Aonoch Mor style gondola would be good from the Hayfield.

Ta Giant.

I object to the premise that £10m to fix it is better than £13m to remove it, on the basis that it will have to be removed at some point anyway, so you can’t actually offset one cost against the other!

Of course, one of  the reasons it was so expensive to build, and will be to repair and remove, is that there are restrictions on the use of vehicles in the ski area. That necessitated an overhead gantry for lugging materials up and down the hill (and the need to photograph/geolocate every boulder so it could be replaced exactly where it was after construction). They should just put a big tarmac/concrete roadway up to the Ptarmigan. It would probably cause less erosion in the long run – AND you could take road bikes up 🙂

Got to laugh at the painstaking trouble gone to about the pros and cons one railway up one peak in the Cairngorms while meantime bulldozing tracks up scores or hundreds of other hills and pouring thousands of tons of concrete to erect windfarms is no problem.

The ski slopes are an eyesore anyway so repairing the existing infrastructure is probably best. I’d relax the restrictions as well and let climbers and walkers use it all year round. The vast majority of them use a handful of paths and damage to wildlife or plantlife is minimal. As seen in Glen Feshie most environmental damage in the Highlands is from overgrazing not walkers and removing deer and sheep is the solution

It’s an utter joke. Get rid of the silly train, even when it was running it was a pita to use, and put a gondola in from the Hayfield.
HIE should be put through the wringer for this mess, how they’ve got away with throwing away good money after bad should be the 8th wonder of the world…

Got to laugh at the painstaking trouble gone to about the pros and cons one railway up one peak in the Cairngorms while meantime bulldozing tracks up scores or hundreds of other hills and pouring thousands of tons of concrete to erect windfarms is no problem.

Not to mention the thousands of miles of stalking roads so that the drunken oafs can go firing their cock extensions all over the shop.

NOne of those other things you mention are in such a special area tho -thats the issue. The cairngorm plateau is a unique internationally important ecosystem.

Thats not to say turn it into some sort of shortbread tin park – but its something to be considered.

Lots of well balanced discussion here.

I’d like to see a gondola from The Hayfield, restrictions removed and MTB trails developed down to Glenmore.

The Cairngorms plateau is big enough to stand this relatively small development and the economic value to Aviemore is needed. SNH are in a different position than they were in the late 1990s and with Forest & Land Scotland owning more land above Rothiemurchus the logistics should be easier.

Meh.

Who knows how many endangered fauna has been burnt over the years to get the Heather going.

How sensible is ski development/refurbishment in a climate which is changing?

Scotland needs to think about tourism and how to invest in it in a sustainable way; the glaciers in the Alps should be a bit of a clue as to the future of Scottish skiing.

No beer – none of the rare species that live on the cairngorm plateau. No heather in that habitat. Anyway two wrongs do not make a right.

NOne of those other things you mention are in such a special area tho -thats the issue

I’m not so sure.

This is a tiny piece of (very pubic/on show) hill, and there are a lot of just as special places elsewhere. I’m disappointed we have such focus on this, perhaps at the expense of ignoring other issues in equally as valuable places?

All that said, Scotland’s a big place and I can’t say I’ve an understanding of every last glen.

As a separate issue I’m deeply unimpressed at the whole mismanagement of the whole Cairngorm ski area project. I’m hopeful that a more local interest might manage to find a more sustained use, income and employment from the hill. See Comrie Croft.

Whatever TJ, I’m not arguing with you, carry on.

How many personal transportation drones or jetpacks could you buy for £10M?

Matt – read up on the cairngorm plateau. Its a very rare habitat that exists nowhere else in the UK and only is matched way further north in Europe. Its also particularly fragile

Of course there are other special areas in Scotland and the UK worthy of protection and please note I am not saying close the ski area at all – what I am saying given the significance of the area we need to be extra careful

The significance of the ecosystem and its fragility needs to be balanced against the interests of the people in the area.

You’re right tj. Care is needed.

I’m concerned that the the time, money and focus on the ski area of the Cairngorms means damage and lack of care elsewhere is unchallenged.

I’m also concerned that a rural economy rests on employment, and one way or another the natural resources of the area could (I think should) be used in a way that benefits all. Not a few from some oddball company.

To add, this total clusterf**** has drained national and local finances.

Good points – and some of the conditions attached to Cairngorm are frankly ludicrous. By the time yo get a few hundred feet below the top of the funicular its no different to any other bit of the cairngorms

I’ll say one thing about this debate. I have both learned things and changed my views on this particular topic from threads on here

Apparently, 3.4m folk have been to the SAC at Cairngorm since the funicular was built. The overwhelming majority of those would have been on foot. No other SAC or SPA in Scotland is subject to the same access restrictions for conservation purposes.

Lets get this into perspective. There isn’t a ski lift (incl the choo choo) within 200m vertical metres of the sacred plateau. All the lift served skiing at “Cairngorm” takes place in Coire Cas and Coire na Ciste. And of course the skiers are only using this when there’s snow on the ground.

As anyone who has ever spent time up there will know, the plateau is criss – crossed with damaging paths caused by hill walkers and, dare I say it, more recently Mountain Bikers.

Lift served skiing in Scotland occupies a tiny fraction of 1% of the land mass in the Highlands yet successive Governments have permitted the wanton destruction of our hills and glens by estate roads and tracks apparently necessary for “farming purposes.” Basically to access 100’s of thousands of acres of even more damaging and intensely and artificially managed grouse moors. The so called economic benefit from that little lot is a complete fallacy in my view.

I’d remove the train and replace it with a Gondola and chairlift system. This was an ill conceived and badly built HIE vanity project. I’d also remove HIE, they aren’t fit for purpose and will continue to mismanage “the hill.” I’d lay odds they will rip the arse out of whatever they say its going to cost and the public will be funding further £expensive repairs in another 10 or 15 years… plus of course the inevitable decommissioning costs in short order thereafter

/\/\ That and what Matt said are on the money IMO

For background;

https://sitelink.nature.scot/site/8475

https://sitelink.nature.scot/site/8217

Note how neither include the ski area, but both include the area below it (where any suggested gondola iuplift from Glenmore would run).

Yup,on the way to the Aviemore half in October we came over the Cairn o Mount then out the back way to Granton. EVERY moor had a burn ongoing. Time this so called industry was looked at.