Gone but Not Forgotten

A look at a local line, the following accounts are true and well documented.

Many people in this area can remember when trains left Grantown station to climb the long grade up to Dava Summit. Man has always battled with the elements in these parts and the railway line over the Dava moor to Dunphail and Forres has had its share of drama.

On the 17 of December 1880, a passenger train left Forres on the long journey to Perth, but soon became snowbound some distance to the south of Dava station and was abandoned; the passengers were able to reach the safety of Dava station waiting room just before the snowstorm intensified. The train was completely buried, and it was many weeks until it was finally to reach its destination. For when it was eventually found, the snow had accumulated to a height of over 60 feet above the roofs of the carriages. That represents a mean snow depth of something over 77 feet. Another train shared the same fate at the other side of the station, once again the passengers made good their escape but five trucks full of cattle were not so fortunate, and perished by suffocation in the rapidly deepening snow, and a relief train sent to the blockage was also stranded for a number of days.

In these remote and weather beaten places, it is not surprising that tales of the supernatural and strange happenings abound. On a cold winter's night in December 1917, and the ground was covered in a hard crust of snow as John Macdonald was returning home along a path beside the railway track between Dunphail and Dava, when there appeared in the night sky beside the plough star, a locomotive and four trucks, which shimmered as it descended and rushed past the terrified observer with smoke and steam pouring from the chimney. It was also seen by John's uncle Angus, who had a farm at Kerrow in that area. No one could give any explanation, apart from the fact that about thirty years earlier a train of forty or so cattle filled wagons caught fire at Dava Station and all the cattle had perished.

Nearly two years later on the evening of 25 October 1919 the same John Macdonald had spent the evening with his friend Jim Jackson at Berryburn croft in the hills beyond Dunphail and was cycling home along the path beside the Railway line once again. The moon was full at that time and it was almost like daylight. As he approached the cutting at Achnalochan there appeared before him, such a bright light that he stumbled from his cycle and stood watching in dismay as he watched the brilliant light, until after a few minutes it faded into nothing leaving only a pool of moonlight to show him the way home.  John Macdonald returned the following day to the place of his experience and searched for clues but found no answer to his mystery.  He told the railway foreman Mr Calder about his experience, and he to had seen the same light that night as he walked line, and subsequent enquiries revealed that several people had made the same observation that night.  No answer has ever been found to explain just what happened that night on the length of remote railway line, but one this is known, and that is that John Macdonald never again walked the railway line from Dunphail to Dava.

Sightings of phantom trains continued for the next 50 years always in the same location within a mile or two. In 1949 John's mother walked along the lineside to visit her sister Mrs Robertson of Carnoch, near Dunphail station, who had been very ill of late. At 11 o'clock she set off for home and as she approached Bogney, she thought she could hear a train coming up the line, but she knew there were no more trains due that night so she dismissed it from her mind. Soon after she felt compelled to look over her shoulder to be confronted with the Grey Train in full steam. She scrambled up the bank and fell to the ground while she witnessed, in terror, the phantom train in its awesome fullness as it raced through the night with a deserted footplate and the fierce glow of the firebox reflected in the pall of steam and smoke from the chimney and the brightly lit carriages streaming behind, all of which were some two feet off the ground.

The railway over the Dava summit was closed on 18 October 1965 and the track was torn up shortly afterwards. Gone forever, leaving the ghosts and phantoms to indulge themselves in isolation in this remote place.

But things had not finished yet.......

A young lady named Mary was walking the path in the early evening when a strange feeling overcame her as she approached Dunphail station. Seconds later an unknown force hit her in the back, and catapulted her some fifteen feet in the air and rolled her down the bank, where she lay paralysed for some time, before crawling to the safety of her home close by.  She was never the same jolly 16 year old again, although she lived for another twenty years in withdrawn isolation.

The apparition on the railway over the Dava has had a lasting effect on all who have witnessed it.

Christina Russell the mother of Ray Henley and her father, the tall chap, and another member of the Dunphail Station staff.  Taken in the mid 1920's

Mr. Mann the Dunphail Stationmaster with Ray Henley's grandfather, again sometime in the mid 1920's