Giants in the Forest: Trains and Forres Chapter 6.5

After the drama of getting lost in Forres, finding my inner artist in the woods, the cycle back to the station is uneventful. Forres is a town that I find difficult to assess - that juxtaposition of the New Age Healing culture and a gentle village intrigues me. It is as if there are two Forres...

I am also forced to reconsider various prejudices. Being an urban type, I assume that there are less masseurs in the Highlands.

The train station (from Forres along to Nethy Bridge) gives me both a train journey (as far as Carrbridge) and a good cycle. I arrive in plenty of time - booking a bike on a train means getting onto the right train - and fiddle with the google map. There will be a spot of drama when I get off the train, if I don't work out which way is south.

After my realisation that I am more like my father than I had imagined, time on a train station can be more fulfilling. I have more than the accepted level of excitement as I stare off along the tracks, noting the old fashioned signal and the growth of plants across on the disused platform. I become an industrial detective, realising that Forres was once much busier. It must have had two lines once, and enough travellers to need two platforms.

My sentimentality about the railways is more common than I thought. In the ticket office, there are old photographs of the trains. I treat the waiting room like a model, snapping images from different angles, trying to capture enough of the trains to be able to send them back to my father. He's be able to identify their stock, their date.

My original assumptions about Forres might be wrong: I assumed that its growth was based on the influx caused by the growth of Findhorn.